Gabriel Slonina will stay in England for the upcoming season, but it won’t be with English Premier League side Chelsea.
Slonina has joined League One side Barnsley on a season-long loan spell, both clubs announced Friday. The U.S. men’s national team goalkeeper will be joined by fellow former MLS product Donovan Pines at Oakwell this season.
Slonina joined Chelsea in 2022, but has yet to make his senior debut for the club. He spent part of the 2022-23 season on loan with the Chicago Fire before spending all of last season with Belgian side Eupen.
The 20-year-old registered five clean sheets in 34 appearances for Eupen. Despite Slonina’s best efforts, Eupen suffered relegation from the Belgian Pro League.
Slonina made 43 combined appearances for the Fire, totaling 16 clean sheets. He’s also made eight appearances for Chelsea’s U-21 side.
“We are really pleased to bring in Gabriel, he is one of few very high level young goalkeepers in the world and already a senior international at 20, we feel this is a mutually beneficial move where Gabriel can test himself as a first team player at Oakwell in an extremely competitive league while we get the benefit of an elite level young player with experience beyond his age,” Sporting Director Mladen Sormaz said.
“We signed Jackson Smith as our long term number one earlier in the summer but we have also been on the lookout for a season long loan option with plenty of high level experience to allow Jackson time to grow into our number 1. James Bittner has a track record of working with young up and coming players and we are seeing this first hand with the progress Jackson is already making.”
Eligible for both the United States and Poland, Slonina committed his future to the U.S. He made his senior USMNT debut in January 2023 and is a former USMNT U-20 standout.
Slonina was part of the U.S. Olympic squad in Paris, France this summer, but served as a backup to Patrick Schulte.
Barnsley’s next match is a EFL Cup first round trip to Wigan Athletic on Tuesday. They lost their opening league match of the season on Friday, 2-1 at home to Mansfield Town.
He needs to look for a permanent move at some point. Chelsea just bought another GK who looks likely to be the starter. That’s 3 GK’s ahead of him and they are all still fairly young keepers themselves.
And that just bought another teenager GK from Genk. That’s 8 GK they have now.
At least he will be playing regularly in albeit in third division.
Seems like the hype train has slowed down (appropriately so) on this youngin’. Hoping that this will be a solid/consistent season for the young professional!