This has not been a banner year for American goalkeepers playing abroad.
English soccer’s regular season concluded May 5, leaving three U.S. keepers —
Queen’s Park Rangers’ Juergen Sommer, Luton’s Ian Feuer, Millwall stalwart Kasey Keller — with the unappealing prospect of playing in lower divisions next season.
Sommer’s QPR was relegated from the Premier League April 27 and the IU product will be playing Division I ball this fall.
Two days later, Sommer’s agent, Mel Stein, was called in by club officials to renegotiate the remaining two years on his contract with the west London club — usually indicative of a pay cut.
Sommer plans to stay with the club, but left immediately after QPR’s final match — a 3-0 loss at Nottingham Forest — for a vacation in Germany and Italy. He will return to the U.S. for the May 26 friendly against Scotland.
In Division I, Luton, which signed Feuer to replace Sommer in goal when he moved to QPR, finished at the bottom of the standings and was also relegated, having amassed a paltry 45 points from 46 games.
But the most dramatic reversal of fortune occurred at Millwall. The London club for which Keller has starred since 1992 sat atop the standings last Nov. 25. Then the slump began that never ended. Relegation was assured with a scoreless tie at Ipswich on the last day of the season.
Predictably, Millwall’s troublesome hooligan element took full advantage of the club’s plight.
Fourteen fans were arrested at Ipswich, which missed out on a place in the promotion playoffs. Millwall fans ripped up seats and threw them at Ipswich supporters during the match.
Afterward, riot police were called in to break up fights outside Portman Road as news of Portsmouth’s 1-0 win at Huddersfield condemned Millwall to the Second Division (the third flight of English soccer).
The only bright spot for the U.S. foreign legion of keepers is Cal State Fullerton product Mike Ammann, who has split time in goal this season at Charlton. It finished sixth to earn a promotion playoff with third-place Crystal Palace.
Meanwhile, Brad Friedel’s future at Turkish club Galatasaray is in doubt following the firing of Scoittish coach Graeme Souness.
It was Souness, the former Liverpool and Rangers boss, who brought Friedel to Istanbul with him at the beginning of the year.
American midfielder Claudio Reyna returned to the Bayer Leverkusen starting lineup May 4 after missing his first game in two months with a groin pull.
Reyna, who sat out Leverkusen’s played the entire 90 minutes in the 2-1 win over 1860 Munich, earning Player of the Game honors by the German wire service SID. The win was only the second in 12 games with Reyna in the starting lineup.
Paul Caligiuri made his first German First Division appearance for St. Pauli for the first time in almost three months May 5 when he came on as a second-half substitute in its 1-1 tie with local rival Hamburg.
Caligiuri is bound for the MLS’s Columbus Crew after his contract expires at the end of June. The German season ends May 18, but he may be called upon to remain with St. Pauli for postseason exhibition matches.
Joe-Max Moore scored his eighth goal of the season for German Second Division club Nuremberg in a 2-2 tie with Hannover April 29.
Moore, who now has 21 goals in two season in the Second Division with Saarbruecken and Nuremberg, missed a penalty kick in a 1-0 loss to Luebeck five days later. Nuremberg began the season with a six-point penalty for financial irregularities. The penalty has cost Nuremberg dearly: It is tied for last place with six games left in the season.