Kristijan Kahlina slighted in MLS year-end awards voting 

TROY HULL | THE CHARLOTTE POST

A year after earning MLS's Goalkeeper of the Year, Charlotte FC's Kristijan Kahlina didn't crack the top three in 2025.

Minnesota United’s Dayne Sinclair was just named the 2026 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year. The other finalists were Matt Freese (New York City FC) and Yohei Takaoka (Vancouver Whitecaps FC). 

That the reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, Charlotte FC’s Kristijan Kahlina, wasn’t in the top three vote getters is worthy of discussion. In the 30 years of this award, no goalkeeper has won it twice in a row, so it’s not surprising that the Croatian Wall wasn’t the first.

Four have received the honor twice, and the Philadelphia Union’s Andre Blake has been honored three times (2016, ’20, ’22), so if Kahlina stays at his current level, he may see it again. 

One of the two-time winners is current Carolina Core head coach Donovan Rickets, who earned it with two teams (LA Galaxy 2010, Portland Timbers 2013). Former Charlotte 49er All-American Jon Busch won in 2008 with the Chicago Fire. 

Great Dayne or good Dayne

Sinclair certainly had a good year, with 30 goals conceded in 30 games. His MUFC team finished fourth in the MLS West with a 16-8-10 record. The Canadian international led MLS with a 77.93 save percentage, while recording career highs in saves (113) and shutouts (10). According to MLS, he was the only goalkeeper in 2025 to record a goals against average of 1.00 or lower and a save percentage above 75%.

Takaoka had 13 clean sheets for a Vancouver team that led the West for much of the year before finishing second to San Diego by just one less win. Sinclair had 10, but Freese only 8, while Kahlina had 12.

As for goals conceded, Sinclair was tops among keepers playing 30 or more matches. Takaoka was very good with 38 in 34. Freese conceded 42 goals in 31 games. Kahlina let in 44 over 32 games but he also faced more shots than any of the top three, which had him leading the league in saves with 129.

Saves are a double-edged category as it indicates a more porous overall defense. After being one of the top two defenses in Dean Smith’s first year with Charlotte, the Crown scored nine more goals in 2025 than last season (55-46), but they also conceded nine more (46) than last year’s second-best MLS total of 37. As such, the goal differential effectively did not change.

St. Clair made 113 saves, Freese 96, and Takaoka 88, so they were called upon far less than Kahlina.

Even though he finished second in the voting statistically, Freese is the surprise in the top three, perhaps buoyed by his recent starting position with the U.S. Men’s National Team. Besides Kahlina, the keeper who merited more attention is Roman Celetano. The FC Cincinnati netminder finished second to Bürki in 2023 and has been solid again this season with 10 clean sheets, conceding 36 goals in 30 matches, and making 87 saves.

Voting skews differently

No one is accusing the league of voter fraud, but maybe there’s a case for voter weirdness. Goalkeeper of the Year is an award voted on by MLS club technical staff, media, and players.

Over the last three years, the only group to correctly pick the eventual winner with the highest percentage of their votes has been the media. It was the media and club voters that swayed the day for Kahlina last year and St. Clair this time around. Bürki was a clear preference by all three groups in 2023, winning by 63%. Kahlina’s margin was 24%, St. Clair’s 12%.

It’s probably more of a slight that Kahlina wasn’t named to the 2024 MLS All-Star team, neither in the fan vote, which chose Maarten Paes of Dallas, nor by Columbus coach Wilfried Nancy, who chose Roman Bürki of St. Louis and Hugo Lloris of LAFC.

Lloris was a big-name keeper on the best team in the MLS Bürki was the 2023 Goalkeeper of the Year for a surprisingly good first-year team, but St. Louis finished 12th last season and would come in 13th this year. 

That Kahlina wasn’t named to the All-Star team must be due to the poor stretch Charlotte experienced from late April to late June, when nine of 11 games were on the road and uncharacteristic defensive errors plagued the Crown. Kahlina was also dealing with the birth of his second child in mid-May.

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