One position for the Philadelphia Union that has seen the most visible change this offseason is the goalkeeping spot. Led by Andre Blake, arguably the best keeper in Major League Soccer, the group has newcomers in Carlos Miguel Coronel and homegrown Matt Freese.
After spending the last two seasons at Harvard, Freese made the leap to go pro this offseason and now is looking to grow both on and off the field to improve not only himself but the Union.
“My personal goals are to push as hard as I can and push the group forward,” Freese said. “All of us are new except for Andre in the goalkeeping group so I want to push us together and be a good teammate to Andre and Carlos. Obviously, I want to keep improving individually so that I can help push the group forward and push myself forward to get time eventually.”
With his first offseason underway, Freese acknowledges that there are some parts of his game that he needs to work on but that’s what the preseason is all about.
“The little technical parts that have gone away since I left the [Union] academy,” Freese said. “Getting those back and getting a little more technical is something that I’ve been working on. I’ve been working with Oka [Nikolov] to work on my diving technique and things like that.”
While the rookie is excited for the upcoming season, his early takeaways from training so far is that this year’s group will be something you won’t want to miss.
“I’m really excited to be here with the group. It’s just a really exciting time for the club, as well as all the new guys that we are bringing in. Another takeaway is that I think we really have a shot to be really successful this year which is definitely exciting.”
