The Secret to ‘Gaga’ Slonina’s Success: Meditation and Clean Sheets in the Under-20 World Cup

The 19-year-old goalkeeper is obsessed with keeping a clean sheet and has done so against Ecuador, Fiji, Slovakia and New Zealand. Four games, four wins and no goals against.

At 1.93 meters tall, he is on his way to becoming the Gold Glove of this World Cup.

He was in the orbit of Real Madrid, but Chelsea went ahead and signed him in August 2022 for 15 million dollars in one of the highest transfers ever paid for a player trained in Major League Soccer (MLS).

His great inspiration is the German Manuel Neuer, who he says revolutionized the goalkeeper position.

POLISH PARENTS AND ATHLETES

Born on May 15, 2004 in Addison, Illinois, Slonina’s story could be framed within the so-called “American dream.”

His entire family is from Poland, but his parents decided to pack their bags and move to the United States a few years before he was born. They wanted to change their lives. Start from scratch.

“They didn’t know the language, or anything, they moved to Chicago for a new beginning,” he recounted in an interview with an official MLS program.

Since he can remember, his family and friends call him ‘Gaga’ and, although he doesn’t remember where the nickname came from, he confesses that today it seems strange to him that they address him by his first name: Gabriel.

The sports side also comes from his parents. His father was a long-distance runner and his mother played basketball.

He was hooked on soccer almost from the time he could walk. Before putting on the gloves, he even tried his hand as a striker and at the age of 10 he entered the MLS Chicago Fire academy. He never stopped growing.

He made his debut with the first team at the age of 17 years and 81 days, quite a milestone because he managed to become the youngest goalkeeper in MLS history to get a start, a clean sheet and a win.

He quickly became indispensable in the Chicago Fire eleven until last January when he headed to London to join Chelsea, with whom he previously signed a six-year contract.

MEDITATION SESSIONS

Slonina says he likes to be “super-organized” and does meditation every morning, which he says helps him stay focused during matches and isolates himself from the stadium environment.

He says that he strives to be “communicative” with the rest of his teammates because he considers that he has a privileged vision of what is happening on the field. “I end up mentally very tired because I analyze everything that happens,” he explains.

This constant study takes him to the extreme that when he watches a game on television he does not follow the ball, he only pays attention to the behavior of the goalkeepers, their gestures, their placement…

He exudes ambition to “be the best” in the world with the maturity of someone who knows that “if you’re ready, you don’t have to be nervous.”

And he is not intimidated on certain political issues either, as he demonstrated with his outright rejection of the war in Ukraine.

POLAND WANTED IT

At the national team level, Slonina has dual nationality and has been tempted by the Polish federation, even getting called up.

But his “heart is American,” as he said last year in an open letter in which he ratified his commitment to the Stars and Stripes team, with whom he has played in the under-15s, under-16s, under-16s. 17 and sub-20.

Last January, he made his debut with the senior team in a friendly against Serbia and, once again, made history by being the earliest to do so under the ‘USA Team’ sticks, at 18 years and 225 days. It does not seem that there is a ceiling for Slonina.