Kahlina named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, a milestone in Charlotte FC’s best season yet

Charlotte FC might have been ousted from the playoffs Saturday evening — but if you look around at what the club accomplished this season, it’s hard not to consider 2024 a win.

Especially if you consider the news from Tuesday morning.

Major League Soccer announced that Charlotte FC goalkeeper Kristijan Kahlina is the 2024 Goalkeeper of the Year. That makes Kahlina the first Charlotte FC player to earn an individual end-of-season MLS award in the club’s three-year history.

Kahlina played so well that by the end of the regular season, players and coaches alike weren’t compromising in their opinion that Kahlina deserved the honor. And that showed in the end-of-season stats. Per league rankings, Kahlina finished first in save percentage (75.63%), tied for first in shutouts (12), tied for first in minutes played (3,060), third in goals against average (1.09) and tied for third in saves (121).

Hugo Lloris of LAFC finished second in the voting, and Patrick Schuttle of Columbus Crew finished third.

Kahlina’s honor by itself is one thing. But couple that with the fact that the Croatian was one of the few players on Charlotte FC’s inaugural squad three years ago — he notched his 100th appearance for the club last month — and something else comes to the fore:

Charlotte FC, as a club, has come so far since 2022.

Under the leadership of Dean Smith, the once-no-nonsense Premier League defender turned English coaching phenom, the plucky Queen City side turned its best season. That entailed a record of 14 wins, 9 draws and 11 losses — one that saw four wins of its final five regular-season matches to capture a club-best fifth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

The playoff round, against Orlando City SC, was special, too. The first game in Orlando resulted a 2-0 loss. The second match in Charlotte — the first playoff contest in the city since 2016 — featured pandemonium thanks to a 0-0 (4-1) victory in penalty kicks. And the third came this past weekend, when the Crown struck first but ultimately lost in penalty kicks again, this time on the road.

Smith’s plucky squad featured one of the best defenses in the game. Charlotte, in 34 matches, only allowed 37 goals, just more than league-best Seattle (35 goals allowed) — and had a star-studded back-line, from Adilson Malanda to USMNT defender Tim Ream.

It also featured an opportunistic offense buoyed by a mix of goal-scorers: the run-right-through-you attacker in Patrick Agyemang (10 goals), the young Designated Player in Liel Abada (seven), the Polish international star in Karol Swiderski (six) and the backflipping wonder of Kerwin Vargas (six).

The club’s most constant source of power, again, was its fandom. Charlotte FC, in 17 home matches, averaged just over 35,000 fans per game — second in the league behind rival-by-proximity Atlanta FC United. This comes in a year when MLS set its all-time record for regular-season attendance with 16 matches left in the 2024 regular season.

Charlotte FC might have lost this weekend. But as Kahlina’s end-of-season honor proved, the club — and the city — still won.