Swope Park Rangers add Youth International Goalkeeper

The Swope Park Rangers continue to build towards the start of the 2018 USL Season. They added Chase Minter last week and now they have added former United States and Mexican National Youth team goalkeeper Christian Herrera.

Herrera is just 20-years-old (21 on April 20th) and most recently represented Portland Timbers 2 in USL last season. He stands at a massive 6’6” and weighs in at 200 pounds. That’s a lot of size to fill the net for the Rangers. He didn’t get on the field for the Timbers last year but previously played for Real Salt Lake’s USL team, Real Monarchs SLC.

Prior to his time on the Monarchs, he was a member of the RSL academy based out of Arizona. He also went on loan with Liga MX club Pachuca in 2016.

He has struggled to get minutes in prior seasons and that could be an issue in 2018 as well. He’ll join Darrin MacLeod, who looked good in limited minutes for Swope in 2017. In addition he is likely to battle with one or both of the backup keepers from Sporting Kansas City. Adrian Zendejas and Eric Dick will both be looking for minutes with Tim Melia firmly entrenched ahead of them with Sporting KC.

Herrera is originally from Las Cruces, New Mexico. He represented both the US and Mexico in their U-18 and U-20 setups as he is a dual citizen. Herrera already made his Rangers preseason debut coming on for MacLeod in the 62nd minute where he would assist in holding on to 1-1 draw.

Here is a look at the rest of the Swope Park Rangers roster. Likely many spots will be left open for all the likely SKC loanees like Gianluca Busio, Jaylin Lindsey and others.