Makin' The Donuts - Cup Edition

When we left off with the all-time Americans Abroad counts, we were dealing with the cup world. Let's pick up where we left off, and get the defenders involved. Yep, it's time for another shutout participation count, but this time we're just dealing in top level domestic (if your winning your cup results in a Europa League invite, it counts here) and UEFA cup play. That means no Super Cups, but qualifying rounds do count.

And while it's true that even one garbage minute in a cup match earned a tick, such instances were extremely rare. The overwhelming majority of what's chalked up here were full shifts (including some that went 120 minutes), or at least something approaching that. It all more than comes out in the wash, is what I'm saying. There are no free passengers here.

Another reality is that nobody will be catching good ol' Gooch any time soon. He played in eight domestic cup competitions, the Champions League, the UEFA League, the Europa League and qualifying rounds for the first two continental tourneys listed a grand total of 72 times. And he marshaled the back line to a clean sheet in damn near a third of those games.

My initial thought was that Dest would be the one to catch him - but then seven of his 11 cup shutout participations came with Ajax and, lately, Barcelona is the one getting shut out in cup games. So we'll see. It's a wide open race from here on out.

As always, those still active in Europe wear an asterisk. I've stopped the list proper at five shutout participations, but have listed a gaggle of active guys below that mark without asterisks.


23 Oguchi Onyewu
15 Carlos Bocanegra
14 Steve Cherundolo
     Thomas Dooley
     Jonathan Spector
13 Fabian Johnson
     Michael Parkhurst
12 John Anthony Brooks*
11 Sergiño Dest*
     David Regis   
     Zak Whitbread
10 Jay DeMerit
8 DeAndre Yedlin*
7 Timothy Chandler*
   Ramiro Corrales
   Eric Lichaj
   Matt Miazga*
   John O'Brien   
6 Gregg Berhalter
   Geoff Cameron
   Cameron Carter-Vickers*
   Brendan Hines-Ike
   Tim Ream*
5 Rhett Bernstein
   Macario Hing-Glover*
   Heath Pearce

Other active players:
4 Kyle Curinga, Antonee Robinson
3 Shaq Moore
2 Mark McKenzie, Erik Palmer-Brown, Chris Richards
1 Reggie Cannon, Matthew Olosunde, Joe Scally, Lawrence Smith, Sam Vines










- Greg Seltzer