How does the USMNT goalkeeper use science?
USMNT goalkeeper Matt Freese has been using science for success in the World Cup.
Video Transcript
Could the fate of Team USA at the World Cup come down to science?
Meet Matt Freese, and yes, he's also the guy who wrote a Harvard research project on penalty kicks.
Because for Freese, studying the game might be in his DNA.
His paternal grandparents, Ernest and Elizabeth Freese, were German scientists who immigrated to the United States after World War II and went on to work at the National Institute of Health.
His aunt, Katherine, is a renowned astrophysicist and one of the world's leading experts on dark matter.
His dad, eh, just a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon who later earned a PhD in neurobiology from MIT.
No pressure.
But it's not all brains.
Matt's maternal grandfather, Jack, was both an Air Force pilot and a professional football player.
Freese attended Harvard, where he studied economics and played soccer before leaving after two seasons to sign with MLS club Philadelphia Union in 2018.
Then during the pandemic, he went back and finished his degree.
Oh, yeah, when we asked soccer player and media personality Taylor Twellman who he thinks could be the breakout star for this US team, he said this.
Wouldn't surprise me one second if Matt Freese plays the way he did during the Gold Cup last summer and that translates into a big move to Europe.
The old saying is that the brain is a muscle and it has to be trained just like the body.
For Matt Freese, it seems both have been training for generations
