Sweeney: Matt Turner's always looking to improve his game

FOXBOROUGH -- One of the things Revolution goalkeeper Matt Turner has done over the fortnight-plus World Cup break was, like most of the planet, watching the group stages. And like any student of the game, the New Jersey native took the time to study the goalkeeping in Russia, looking for any nuance — any edge — that he can apply in his own matches in Major League Soccer.

From David de Gea’s howler against Portugal in Spain’s opener to the play of Nigeria’s young 19-year-old keeper Francis Uzoho, Turner has soaked it all in.

For instance, Turner admitted after New England’s 3-2 win over Eastern Conference rival DC United Saturday night that he had difficulty stopping free kicks while he played with the USL’s Richmond Kickers a year ago.

“It’s been a point of emphasis for me,” he said, noting how he had wanted to improve on that facet of defending heading into the year.

Yet the way he defended Luciano Acosta’s free kick with the half-hour mark approaching, it looked like an old hat-like play that he makes in his sleep: Turner had shaded toward the far post as he had a six-man wall in front of him — "Sometimes it’s hard to see the ball; you’re holding your position, you wait, and you react the best you can,” he said — before Acosta sent the ball flying toward the upper left-hand corner.

Turner launched himself toward the corner and popped it up and over the bar, maintaining the 1-nil Revs lead.

It was one of four first-half saves Turner had to make against DC’s Darren Mattocks, Zoltan Stiebler, Yamil Asad, and Acosta.

“They’ve got a lot of speed up top,” he said on Friday. “They’re going to hit us quickly on counterattacks, so we have to be secure with the ball, especially in the middle of the park where we’ve lost it a couple of times in dangerous areas.”

The only one that got by him came in the 42^nd minute on, yup, a free kick. Stiebler’s free kick looked like it was headed toward the back post, and so Turner bounced that way, ready to make yet another stop. But the ball instead caromed off Asad’s noggin and in, making Turner’s knees buckle as DC equalized.

Is that one he’d like back? Possibly.

He does want one from the first half of the season back, and that’s the goal Chicago’s Bastien Schweinsteiger hit against him on June 9, a ball that slipped through his hands and in to give the Fire a short-lived lead.

“We responded really well as a team (that night),” he said. “My team picked me up and we were able to fight back and get a point. We could have gotten three there.”

Going back to the World Cup, Turner mentioned the de Gea gaffe and noted how Spain rallied around him.

One can draw a line between Turner’s miscue against Chicago and how the team has always supported him.

“(De Gea) bounced back and has been playing since then and how his team instills confidence in him still,” he said. “Those things happen in games, and goalkeeper is a tough position in that sense. Yeah, our job is to keep the ball out of the net: it’s a simple concept, right? Sometimes it can be challenging in different ways. De Gea, (Manuel) Neuer, they are two of the top goalkeepers in the world. And I really like that kid from Nigeria; he was solid.

“I don’t look too much into it; I just think more of the overall and what transpired and how you bounce back from a mistake like that. Top goalkeeper in the world, it happens to everybody.”

It does, Matt. It does.