Djordje Petrovic: Why Chelsea have paid £14m to sign New England Revolution's star goalkeeper

Revs goalkeeper coach Kevin Hitchcock remembers the first time he saw Petrovic in action. The club was preparing for the inevitable: the loss of Turner. They knew their United States star was on his way out, and that meant it was time to start looking for his replacement.

Clips of three or four goalkeepers came across Hitchcock's desk, and, within seconds, he knew. "I just loved the way his plyometric jump was; that was the biggest thing for me," Hitchcock, the former Chelsea goalkeeper, told GOAL of Petrovicearlier this ear.

"That was something I saw with Matt Turner, and I knew I could improve it too. I said straight away, 'This is the one I want. Petrovic is the one.' So, we went to [Revs head coach Bruce Arena], and Bruce looked at the video for 45 seconds and he agreed. Everybody was on the same page."

But wanting a player and signing a player, those are very different things. At the time, Petrovic was playing for FK Cukaricki, having been in the club's academy since 2014. He'd featured for the club in the Europa Conference League and had made his Serbia debut in 2021.

Hitchcock is quick to praise the Revsfor getting the deal done so quickly. Petrovic, meanwhile, says it didn't take too much to convince him that a move across the Atlantic would present him with a chance to further his career in a big way.

"I wanted to take the next step," he says, "and so I thought that the MLS as a league and the Revolution were the right place for me. When that offer came, it just really sat right with me. They had a plan for me. When Matt would leave, I would step in and become the [first-choice] goalkeeper. I also worked really well with Kevin and, so far, it has turned out to be a good move for me!"

Petrovic, as he says, was initially signed as a back-up. He arrived in April 2022 and Turner, eventually, left in May, and that meant for a little while the Revs had two top goalkeepers in the squad.

Turner, now the No.1 at Nottingham Forest, was on his way out, but he was far from checked out. During his final few months with the Revs, he took Petrovic under his wing, helping to prepare him for his inevitable ascension into the starting role.

"It was a dream. It was brilliant,' Hitchcock says. "Matt picked up straight away the things I was working on with Djordje and he was encouraging him every time. He was pushing him, so it wasn't just me pushing Djordje but Matt pushing Djordje. Matt was like a big brother to him. They got on so well."

Turner moved to Arsenal, leaving the starting spot to Petrovic, who wasted no time in making it his own. Somehow, after losing an MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in Turner, the Revs' goalkeeping got even better once Petrovic took over.

Petrovic made his first MLS start on June 12 against the Philadelphia Union. Two weeks later, he earned his first clean sheet with six saves in a 0-0 draw in Vancouver. And, from there, it all just snowballed.

By the time the 2022 season was over, he had seven clean sheets in just 21 starts, including a club-record run of four straight in July and August. He had the second-best save percentage of all MLS goalkeepers and four penalty saves, more than any goalkeeper since 2017.

He won MLS Save of the Year and came second in the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year voting, finishing behind Andre Blake. It was the third season in a row that the Revs had a goalkeeper finishing top two in the Goalkeeper of the Year vote, with Turner winning the award in 2021 and finishing second in 2020.

"As far as I'm personally concerned, last year was excellent," Petrovic said earlier this season. "I got used to and accustomed to MLS as a league, but we have not achieved our team goals."

Petrovic has been strong once again in 2023, keeping seven clean sheets in 22 matches. His 99 saves are most in the league, eight more than former Borussia Dortmund star Roman Burki at St Louis City, while his save percentage is the highest in the league of any goalkeeper that has started more than two games.

Petrovic has been a hit both on and off the pitch, quickly adjusting to life in Boston. He's working on his English and has, so far, enjoyed life in the U.S.

"Boston is the most beautiful city in the United States for me," he enthuses. "I haven't been to many cities, but among the cities that I visit, Boston is the best. It's so much like some of the best European cities!"

Hitchcock has been around the game for a long, long time, having spent over a decade at Chelsea before embarking on a coaching career that eventually brought him to New England. That makes Hitchcock someone who knows what he's talking about when it comes to the goalkeeping position, but even he isn't quite sure how to label Petrovic.

"Athletically, he reminds me of Matt, who used to remind me of Brad Friedel," Hitchcock says. "Brad Friedel was a very athletic goalkeeper. But Djordje is a very different build to both. He has a longer reach, so he really is his own man. He does his own things."

It's pretty high praise. Friedel is an American soccer and Premier League legend, while Turner started for the U.S. at the World Cup in Qatar. Both have reached the pinnacle of the game, but Hitchcock believes Petrovic will too.

At 6'4", Petrovic has the height clubs look for in a goalkeeper and is about an inch or so taller than Friedel and Turner. As Hitchcock says, he has everything a coach can want athletically, but Petrovic's biggest asset, his coach says, is his confidence. The Serbian knows how good he is and can be. He doesn't waver.

He does, however, go through the growing pains that all 23-year-old goalkeepers do, but Hitchcock says he's rapidly improving the mental side of his game: "I'm trying to teach him different habits. Sometimes he finds it very difficult because he gets so frustrated with himself, which is good because he wants to be a better goalkeeper than what he already is."

It's fair to say there's a bit of a goalkeeper shuffle going on at Chelsea at the moment, with Petrovic set to become the latest to jump right in to a wild situation at Stamford Bridge.

Edouard Mendy is gone, having moved to Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia. So too is Kepa Arrizabalaga, who has gone out on loan to Real Madrid with an eye towards a permanent move. Gabriel Slonina, the U.S. men's national team goalkeeping prodigy, has been loaned out to KAS Eupen for seasoning and could very well be the club's main goalkeeper of the future.

Sanchez, the ex-Brighton No.1, has been brought in and it seems Petrovic will soon join him, not just to back him up but perhaps provide him competition.

Petrovic, despite his inexperience at the top level, is an elite shot-stopper and, at just 23, is still improving. It wouldn't be a surprise to see Sanchez hold down the starting role, at least for a bit, as Petrovic adjusts to Premier League life, but it's clear that Chelsea see the Serb as a goalkeeper they can groom for that role either this year or next.

He certainly has the talent and mentality to do so, which is why Chelsea are betting on him and why, ultimately, he's also betting on the Blues to be the club to take him to that next level.

Reports all over the world have been linking Petrovic with big clubs for some time, and you can count Hitchcock among those that believe the young Serbian could be the next star to successfully make the leap from MLS to Europe.

"It doesn't surprise me at all," Hitchcock says. "Just because of the Matt Turner thing, people think 'Oh, they must be doing something special over there in New England.'"

So far, his heroics in MLS haven't quite been enough to get Petrovic a regular role with the Serbian national team. Instead, head coach Dragan Stojkovic has gone with Mallorca's Predrag Rajkovic, Torino's Vanja Milinkovic-Savic and Marko Dmitrovic of Sevilla – all players with more experience than Petrovic.

Having earned his second cap in January, Petrovic is hoping to become more of a regular with his country, which has participated in three of the last four World Cups.

"It's always a privilege and an honour to play and participate with your national team and for your country," he says. "As far as goalkeepers are concerned, competition has never been tougher than now and I believe that Serbia probably has six or seven goalkeepers that are among the best in the world."

It's an exciting time for Petrovic, then. He soon could find himself among the best in the world playing on a bigger stage with Chelsea. Serbia will soon come calling, for sure, and he'll get his chance to show why he is ready to be a star for both club and country.