Confidence. It has the power to bring out the best and the worst in everyone. It can great heroes and terrible villains with equal ease. Yet, for better or worse, it remains the most important weapon in a goalkeepers arsenal in more ways than one.
Brad Guzan is nothing if not confident. His play in net this season for Aston Villa demonstrates that. So vital to maintaining that play, however, is some sense of confidence from his coach, his team and the fans that will fill the stadium in Denver in just under two weeks. The 28-year-old ‘keeper has the first, and will likely earn the second in short order, but may have to work harder for the last.
Despite his stellar form for the bottom-dwelling Birmingham club — Villa would find itself rooted firmly to the bottom of the Premiership without the American shot-stoppers weekly heroics — Guzan would likely be enjoying the qualifiers against Costa Rica and Mexico from the comfort of the bench without an injury to USMNT and Everton No. 1 Tim Howard. Guzan has closed the gap between himself and the stand-in captain — whose own form has been slipping in 2013 — but is still firmly entrenched as understudy.
Howard is a talismanic figure for the United States, his best performances routinely coming in a US shirt. Since taking over for Kasey Keller in 2007 his fire and command of the backline has kept the US in a number of games they shouldn’t have been and inspired my personal favorite chant among supporters groups. Guzan is that kinda-tubby-looking “other guy” who would step in to shutdown powerhouses like Barbados while failing to get more than a handful of meaningful games over four years in England.
Then, it all changed. Irish international Shay Given — considered one of the Premiership’s best over the past decade — suffered a severe loss of form for club and country. Villa boss Paul Lambert gave Guzan a chance in an attempt to right the ship and has hardly looked back. Now, Villa has continued to be a sieve at the back, but the consensus is that Guzan is hardly to blame. At least when his own defense is more partial to clinical finishes than no-nonsense clearances.
With Guzan not just getting games in one of the world’s toughest leagues, but putting in standout performances, the drop off from Howard is less now than ever before. The lineage of American ‘keepers has been impressive in the past two decades and when it came to Howards replacement in that line, some were already looking past the obvious air apparent in Guzan to youngsters like Sean Johnson or Bill Hamid.
Others are even looking back into that lineage for the immediate stopgap while Howard recovers. Back, in fact, all the way to “The Human Wall” that carried the United States in the 2002 World Cup, Brad Friedel. Despite retiring from international duty in 2005, Friedel continues to be a competent, top class keeper for Tottenham. Even as Howard took the reigns for the US, Friedel continues to be the standard to hold American keepers to, both overseas and in the states. In a move that provided relief to many, the 41-year-old took to Twitter to announce he would consider suiting up for the US again — if Guzan got hurt as well.
While some may still cry for Friedel to be the savior, his faith in Guzan to do the job — No. 3 ‘keeper Nick Rimando was not so lucky to receive a vote of confidence — should be encouraging to the doubters in the fanbase. He is a vocal leader, a fantastic shot-stopper and, barring injury, the US No. 1 for two vitally important World Cup qualifiers.
Guzan knows that he can do the job between the sticks for the United States. Legends like Friedel have confidence in him. Jürgen and the men that will line up in his defense believe in him. If Guzan can keep Costa Rica and Mexico at bay, fans will know it as well. Then we might have a real goalkeeping controversy on our hands.
American Soccer Junkies 
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