Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia continued to show his remarkable prowess in stopping penalty kicks last weekend, pushing aside an attempt from Marco Fabián of the Philadelphia Union in the 41st minute of a 2-0 victory at Children’s Mercy Park.

Since the start of the 2016 season, the East Islip, N.Y. native has saved eight penalty kicks among the 18 spot kicks he has faced – the most of any goalkeeper in Major League Soccer.

MOST PENALTY KICK SAVES (SINCE 2016)
PK FACED PK GOALS PKS SAVED
Tim Melia 18 10 8
Nick Rimando 15 9 5
Zack Steffen 12 8 4
Andre Blake 16 13 3
Tim Howard 17 12 3

Melia, a graduate of East Islip H.S., has saved eight penalty kicks over his 10-year MLS career,fourth-most in league history. The all-time leader is still Real Salt Lake’s Nick Rimando, who has made 24 saves among the 88 penalty kicks he’s faced (56 of those goals, with eight off-target).

But Melia’s save percentage of better than 38 percent of all penalty kicks faced is the best of any goalkeeper in league history (among goalkeepers with at least five penalty kick saves).

MOST PENALTY KICK SAVES (CAREER)
PK FACED PKG PK SAVED SAVE %
Nick Rimando 88 56 24 27.3%
Kevin Hartman 57 41 12 21.1%
Joe Cannon 53 41 11 20.8%
Tim Melia 21 13 8 38.1%
Matt Jordan 22 13 7 31.8%
Sean Johnson 35 25 7 20.0%
Tim Howard 27 19 6 22.2%
Luis Robles 39 30 6 15.4%

Melia and Sporting have a busy week. It hosts Independiente of Panama in a second leg of its Concacaf Champions League quarterfinal series Thursday night before visiting the Colorado Rapids in MLS action Sunday.

 

 

 

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.