Matt Freese started in goal for the United States in its first World Cup match, giving the 27-year-old New York City FC goalkeeper the kind of stage that once seemed far from the path he chose. Mauricio Pochettino had to pick between Matt Turner and Matt Freese, and he went with the Harvard graduate for the opener the United States won 4-1 against Paraguay.
Freese’s rise matters now because it comes at the start of a World Cup campaign, when every selection is read as a statement. The United States was set to face Australia in Seattle on Friday at 21:00, a quick turnaround that will test whether the choice in goal was a one-off or the start of a longer run.
The road here was not a straight one. In high school, Freese decided he wanted a career as a professional soccer player, even though that sat awkwardly in a family described as academically minded. His father, Andrew, studied at Harvard and earned a doctorate at MIT, and Freese once put it bluntly that, as a scientist, sports felt unfamiliar to him.
That background helps explain why his name still stands out. Freese began a business degree at Harvard while playing for the Harvard Crimson, declined an offer from Manchester United when he was young, then moved on to Major League Soccer through Philadelphia Union in 2018 and made his first appearances in the league in 2019. When the pandemic hit, he kept studying online and finished the degree, then signed a long-term deal with New York City FC through 2030.
That is the friction at the center of his story: the route to becoming a goalkeeper at World Cup level ran through a college classroom first. Pochettino chose one of two Matts for the opener, and the decision now hangs on whether Freese, who has spent years proving that soccer and scholarship can share the same career, keeps the job when the matches start coming fast.
