{"id":174856,"date":"2026-08-19T23:32:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T23:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/174856\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T23:32:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T23:32:28","slug":"luka-gavran-arguably-toronto-fcs-best-player-since-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/174856\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Gavran ‘arguably Toronto FC’s best player’ since World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was always going to be an element of risk for Toronto FC when they let MLS legend Sean Johnson leave in the offseason, and replaced him with young, relatively unproven backup Luka Gavran, but it has proven to be a great decision.<\/p>\n

Gavran has taken the number one shirt and ran with it, and it might even land him a spot on the Canadian national team sooner rather than later. Composed and commanding in his box, Gavran has improved as the season has progressed, as a result of getting more reps week in and week out. <\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t been an easy learning curve, but head coach Robin Fraser believes his goalkeeper has risen to the occasion. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019ve seen tremendous growth early on, as you would expect. Somebody who\u2019s in his first foray as a number one, some nerves, some indecision, things that you would find,\u201d Fraser told reporters including Waking The Red on Tuesday. \u201cWhen other other players do this in other parts of the field, you don\u2019t necessarily get penalized, but when you\u2019re a goalkeeper and you have shaky moments, it usually leads to bad things, and you either grow from it or you shrink from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say Luka has definitely grown, and throughout the season, he just continues to get better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

TFC will need their goalkeeper to keep up this form for the rest of the season as well if they\u2019re going to make the playoffs. Not every team can win games 4-2, 5-3 or 6-4 like Lionel Messi\u2019s Inter Miami have done this season with some of the worst goalkeeping in the league<\/a> from Dayne St. Clair and Rocco R\u00edos Novo. <\/p>\n

With St. Clair benched for the World Cup by Jesse Marsch and since by Miami, inviting Gavran to the September and October Canada camp with Maxime Cr\u00e9peau and Owen Goodman would make sense based on form, even if it is unlikely. Gavran was called up for Canada\u2019s camp and \u201cB\u201d friendly for mostly North American-based players in January and came off the bench for James Pantemis. He was also with the national team for the 2025 Canadian Shield friendly tournament last summer.<\/p>\n

Both of those were before Gavran cemented his place as TFC\u2019s number one. <\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy: Shaun McLeod\/Canadian Soccer Daily<\/p>\n

Gavran has been left to save the day on several occasions this season as a result of poor defending, but with Benjamin Kuscevic back in the mix and Walker Zimmerman playing as well as he has all season in front of the goalkeeper, things are looking up for TFC defensively. <\/p>\n

The Reds have two clean sheets in five matches since the World Cup break, with the four goals they have conceded highly preventable \u2014 two penalties, an own goal and the late header New England scored on the weekend with TFC down to 10 men, which had no impact on the final result. <\/p>\n

Defensive solidity is the foundation for any good team, and if the goals follow, there is a chance for them to make a move up the standings. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been fantastic for us,\u201d added Theo Corbeanu. \u201cHe\u2019s a dear friend of mine. We played together when we were kids, and he was a striker actually when I played with him as a kid, now he\u2019s a goalkeeper, it\u2019s crazy to see the the evolution of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gavran showed some of those striker instincts in April when he scored a 96th-minute equalizer against the Philadelphia Union at BMO Field.<\/p>\n

Scoring isn\u2019t his day job, but he\u2019s also been doing a fine job in his own box as well for TFC. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe obviously had to wait very patiently to to get his chance last year behind a very good goalkeeper in Sean Johnson, but the way he\u2019s done this year and come into the group as the number one, there\u2019s been a lot of pressure on him. I feel like he\u2019s still a young goalkeeper, so he\u2019s been dealing with that very well, and I think the reaction that he\u2019s had since the World Cup break is amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been arguably our best player, so he\u2019s been immense, and we\u2019re all so happy for that progress for him. We\u2019re just wishing him to continue like this because the sky\u2019s the limit for him if he continues like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was always going to be an element of risk for Toronto FC when they let MLS legend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5310,5383,318,359,8453,5312,47232,48,330],"class_list":["post-174856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-bmo-field","tag-luka-gavran","tag-major-league-soccer","tag-mls","tag-robin-fraser","tag-tfc","tag-theo-corbeanu","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-fc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}