USMNT star Matt Turner didn’t take a goal kick until he was 20 as Nottingham Forest keeper was a ‘baseball & basketball guy’

USMNT star Matt Turner admits that he was a baseball and basketball guy growing up and did not take his own goal kicks until the age of 20.

The United States international has progressed rapidly from that point, with 33 senior caps won with his country. Turner has also starred in MLS for the New England Revolution, earning him a transfer to Premier League giants Arsenal and eventually on to Nottingham Forest.

Turner has a come long in a relatively short space of time, with the New Jersey native telling BBC East Midlands Today of his upbringing and being a late bloomer in football terms: The World Cup in 2010 was really what got me into the sport. That's when I was 16 and started playing soccer, or football, year round after that. Before that, I kind of flirted with the idea of playing. Both my older sisters played, but really I was more a baseball guy, a basketball guy and they are the sports I played since I could walk. I couldn't take my own goal kicks until I was 20 years old. I just didn't have the ability or strength to really lift the ball up into the air. I was always that goalkeeper that was asking the centre-back to come take his goal kicks. The hard thing for me was catching up with my technique.

Having completed that process, Turner believes that he still has plenty left to achieve in the game. At 29 years of age, and having joined Forest for £10 million ($12m) over the summer, he added on his past, present and future: I knew that if I wanted to be on the pitch I had to take care of what I could take care of - which was defending the goal. That is basically what I built my career off of - being solid and consistent. Then those other areas of my game have been developing over the last few years. The great part of starting so late is that, yes, I'm 29 but I really do feel young. I feel like I have so much to learn and to grow. And that is how I approach every day. I don't approach every day thinking I'm where I can be, and I'm at my maximum and that I can't learn anything more today to make tomorrow better. That couldn't be more opposite to how I view every day.

Turner has quickly made the number one spot his own at the City Ground, having struggled for regular game time at Arsenal, and will be hoping to retain starting duties with the USMNT through to a home World Cup in 2026.