Our 2023 FC Dallas player recaps continue with veteran keeper Jimmy Maurer.

The 35-year old completed his seventh season with the club, the second in a row as a backup to keeper Maarten Paes.

Stat breakdown

Maurer only appeared in five matches in 2023, four of those starts and the other being the bench appearance in St. Louis when Paes got red carded. Maurer had 13 saves in those five appearances, with a 62% save percentage. He also gave up eight goals.

Highlight

Unfortunately, there were no easy clips to pull off any big saves out of those five appearances.

Will he be back in 2024?

It all will come down to how much the club wants to rely on Antonio Carerra as the team’s backup to Paes in 2024. If they think Carerra is ready, it makes sense to move on from Maurer.

If not, one more year with the veteran on the team isn’t a bad idea. After all, we don’t know truly how much longer the club will be able to retain Paes from going back to Europe. So having a veteran guy to fill in the event Paes gets offered a good deal to go back to Europe next summer (which isn’t truly unlikely if you ask me), isn’t a bad idea at all.

Photo via FC Dallas

Final thoughts

I’m a big fan of what Maurer brings to any club in MLS, not just FC Dallas. I do hope that if this were his last year, he would be able to turn his time with the club into another role either through the academy system or even the front office. I can see him as a guy who could easily stay around the DFW market and be a sort of ambassador for the team.

Who knows, maybe my gut feeling about the club not retaining him for 2024 will be wrong, and we’ll see him back in training again next season.