Tim Melia is one of the best goalkeepers in Major League Soccer and has been since arriving at Sporting Kansas City nine years ago. He’s preternaturally adept at saving penalties, winning the psychological brain games of shootouts, and his leadership is crucial in an SKC side fighting for a fifth Open Cup.
It's also worth noting that the two-time Open Cup Champion, now 37, takes none of it for granted.
“You’re only as good as your last game,” said Melia, who earned his first starting gig in the American top-flight at the ripe old age of 29. “I know that more than the next guy because of all I’ve been through.”
An agile shot-stopper with an eye for quick breaks, the Long Island native paid his dues in the lower leagues with the Rochester Rhinos before Real Salt Lake drafted him in 2010. Of course, once at the top of the pyramid, it was all money, comfort and the professional dream.
Happily ever after, right? Not quite.
He was released from his contract after barely a full year in Utah and quickly landed one of the worst gigs in MLS at the time: Back-up at Chivas USA. He made six appearances for the ill-fated club and conceded 12 goals, an average of two per game. It’s one of those stats that’s a damned lie, a reflection more on the now-defunct club’s mismanagement than Melia’s chops between the posts.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, when Chivas went belly up in 2014, Melia ended up in MLS’ goalkeeper pool – where no one wants to be at age 28. He was a gun-for-hire, a back-up who’d travel to fill a hole. “It’s not the situation I wanted to be in,” he said, remembering those days. He was a body, quite literally, making up the numbers, on contract with the league but not with a team. “But it was my reality.”
Melia took a novel approach to climbing out of the pool.
“I treated every stretch where I got in front of an MLS coach as a straight-up trial,” he said of those days having earned only a handful of starts and watching his dream die slowly. “I was pretty intense. I went all out. I did whatever needed doing – shagging balls or putting myself in front of hundreds of shots.”
Then-LA Galaxy coach Bruce Arena let Melia practice with his squad, affording him at least a modicum of stability between Pool loans. “I just went across the hall, changed my shirt and trained with the Galaxy,” said Melia, who talks about the ins and outs of the game as you would expect, like someone who watched closely and paid attention to the details. “I put everything into it.”
Once he flew across the country only to have a coach change his mind when he arrived with a bag in hand and bleary-eyed. For a competitor like Melia, a pro in his bones desperate for a chance, it was cruel. He considered hanging up his gloves for good. But he pushed on. And when Sporting had a need in 2015, all three of their keepers down to injury, they put a call in for Melia. He packed another bag – maybe it was already by the door from last time out – and made his way to Kansas City.
He got his chance this time. For real. He pounced on the opportunity offered by Peter Vermes – SKC coach then and to this day. Melia’s talent, determination and attitude – honed through the hard times – were obvious. It might be a trick of the eye, but Melia seems to hold the ball a little tighter and smother it more completely than other keepers, careful not to let the chance he’d waited so long for slip through his fingers.
He was named the league’s Comeback Player of the Year in 2015, a sideways honor he scoffs at, before claiming that year’s Open Cup. A breakout 2017 followed and Melia won another Open Cup, that year’s MLS Goalkeeper of the Year crown plus an All-Star bid and the fan-voted SKC Player of the Year prize.
He’s expansive when talking about what it means to play at home. There’s genuine gratitude when conversation turns to the fans at Children’s Mercy Park. “It’s huge. You sleep in your own bed and train at your own field,” he said. “You keep your own routine. And then you get a little bit of extra energy from the fans and it makes all the difference.
“You drop these fans into the equation and it’s a recipe for perfection,” he said of the commitment of the club’s supporters at Children's Mercy Park – where SKC won their 2024 U.S. Open Cup Semifinal against Division II Cinderellas Indy Eleven of the USL Championship.
“Unbelievable,” former center-back and SKC captain Matt Besler said of Melia. Coach Vermes once called his go-to man between the posts: “The Hulk.” It seems to wrap up the high esteem the goalkeeper is held in around the KC clubhouse.
Melia admits to having a special place in his heart for the Open Cup. Winning the tournament for the first time in his first year at SKC, it had double-meaning. “For a guy who became a starter so late in his career, I got my chances to play in the Open Cup,” he said about the dark days when an Open Cup outing was a hint of light in a life of anonymity. “If you played well and got a result, you could make more minutes for yourself.
“I love the tournament,” he added about the historic knockout competition that SKC are on the cusp of winning for a fifth time – which would be a first for an MLS team. “There’s opportunities in it.”
He also likes having it all on the line. “Open Cup games are the kind where you just have to do anything to get through,” said Melia ahead of SKC’s first Open Cup Semifinal since they won the whole thing in 2017. “It doesn’t matter if you win 5-4 or 1-0 or on penalties, you just need to win.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of usopencup.com. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.