When Matt Freese was about 10 years old, he set out to solve a problem that existed entirely in his own head.He wanted to be a soccer goalie, but there was another boy his age in the area who was considered better.
“He could dive and just fully get airborne,” Freese said.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Freese was already training in the backyard with his brother, facing upward of 400 shots a night, until they both went inside muddy.But his dives weren’t good enough.
He went to his bedroom, where he had a twin bed on a wooden frame, and started launching himself onto the mattress, his arms outstretched, pretending to catch an invisible ball.He had to lift his feet and get as high as possible, or he’d smash his shins on the frame.“Maybe that’s why my bed broke,” Freese said.Freese might catapult onto the global stage this summer, too.
He’s competing with Matt Turner to be the starting goalie for the U.S.national team at the World Cup.
Freese joined the roster only 17 months ago as a relative unknown.Now he’s pushing Turner, the incumbent, and many expect him to win the job, which would make him one of the faces of the team.
Matt Freese signs autographs for fans in Chester, Pa., on Nov.15.
Ira L.Black/USSF / Getty ImagesHow did Freese do it? By scraping his way through the college and professional ranks and continuing to improve, channeling the same energy he had as a young boy leaping onto his bed.
“I just continue to remind myself,” Freese told NBC News, “I’m always a student of the game.”Being a student happens to run in the family.Matt’s paternal grandparents, Ernst and Elisabeth Freese, were German scientists who immigrated to the U.S.
after World War II and ended up working for the National Institutes of Health.Ernst was a renowned molecular biologist who studied DNA mutations, the link between chemicals and cancer, and the root of Parkinson’s and Al...