Buy your shares of Adam Beaudry stock before it’s too late.
Like any 18-year old goalkeeper, Beaudry wants to be one of the best the U.S. has ever seen. Colorado Rapids goalkeepers coach Chris Sharpe, without an ounce of doubt on his face, said Beaudry’s on that path.
In a similar vein, Sharpe said he’d be “absolutely stunned” if Beaudry doesn’t become the U.S. men’s national team’s No. 1 goalkeeper at some point in the coming years.
One reason? Take Beaudry’s two performances with the USYNT U-19 squad in friendlies against Argentina and Uruguay. Across about 75 minutes between the two matches, Beaudry held his own, staying perfect between the posts to contribute to clean sheets in both games.
The trip itself was a fun one for Beaudry, who has been included on youth national team rosters for quite some time now. Though he admits his Spanish is a work in progress, exploring Buenos Aires was a nice mental refresher.
A yellow card he earned against Argentina may have been his best soccer moment of the trip, at least in the grand scheme.
Subbing on against Argentina in the 61st minute on June 7, his team was holding onto a 1-0 lead by a thread. So to give his guys a minute to breathe, he unselfishly took a yellow card for time wasting in the 82nd minute.
“We had guys on the ground, people getting kicked in the shins and putting their bodies on the line. A couple goal line clearances, people sliding in front of bodies,” Beaudry said. “It was just one of those things where I had to take one and let everyone get a breather real quick so we could finish the game strong.”
It was a sign of his maturity, particularly in contrast to his youth, to think about a minute detail like that in the heat of a tight game.
Sharpe estimates Beaudry has added 15 pounds of muscle in the past year and thinks he’s got a few more inches to add onto a 6-foot-1 frame, but don’t be fooled: The standard of play and the mentality are already leagues above what his age might say.
Before turning 18 (and before even graduating high school), he was a finalist for MLS NEXT Pro Goalkeeper of the Year, was the starter for all four games of a Round of 16 run for the USYNT at the U-17 World Cup, and signed a four-year Homegrown deal with the Rapids.
The accolades are a byproduct of the intense focus with which Beaudry approaches each day of training.
“He’s got such a good head on his shoulders on the field and off the field. Schoolwork, preparation before training, post-training preparation for games, video, you name it,” Sharpe said of the Castle Pines native. “He’s got such a good desire to want to be the best he can be. … When you have a maturity level like that and you have your head on straight, the sky’s the limit. I’ll be honest, it’s frightening.”
For Beaudry, a lot of the mentality comes from his parents, who he said instilled in him a strict work ethic. In fact, the goalkeeper mindset runs in the Beaudry bloodline — his dad once wore the gloves himself. That’s where he gets a level-headedness about him; he said his dad never gets too high or too low.
Which lends itself to a consistency that Sharpe is enamored with when it comes to Beaudry. Like dad, Beaudry doesn’t often scale peaks or fall into valleys.
Though he hasn’t yet played any first-team minutes, both Beaudry and Sharpe think he’s ready for that sort of responsibility. Until the opportunity arrives, he’ll continue to learn from Zack Steffen.
What someone like Steffen can do for a young keeper like Beaudry is a given; studying under and training with a world-class talent isn’t something every 18-year old gets to do. But according to Sharpe, Beaudry’s presence provides a benefit to Steffen, too.
“What Adam gives is competition,” Sharpe said. “We did a podcast, the three of us (Beaudry, Sharpe and Steffen), and Adam said his main goal is to push Zack to be the best goalkeeper he can be every day, and he does that. Adam’s ability to develop while he’s pushing Zack and Ethan (Bandré) and Marko (Ilić), it’s unbelievable.
“It’s just a really good environment for the guys to keep progressing and developing.”
Looking forward, Beaudry is eligible and has an opportunity to be selected to the U-20 national team for the CONCACAF U-20 Championship, which begins July 19 in Mexico.
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