American goalkeeper Josh Cohen in UEFA Champions League: From NCAA Division II to facing PSG, Juventus with Maccabi Haifa

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In the summer of 2012, Lionel Messi was already considered by many to be one of the greatest players the sport of soccer had ever seen.

The Barcelona superstar, then 24 years old, had just come off a season where he scored an astonishing 50 La Liga goals and 14 more in the Champions League across 48 total games.

Meanwhile, just over 6,000 miles away, a 20-year-old Josh Cohen had just finished his junior year at UC San Diego, a season in which he had logged the second-longest shutout streak in Tritons program history at 766 minutes, ultimately earning a spot on the NCAA Division II All-American Second Team.

Still, the two players were universes apart.

“It’s something I’ve dreamed about, but never in a tangible way,” Cohen told ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle. “More like superpowers than dreaming of a new car.”

On Sept. 14, now 30 years old and playing for Israeli champions Maccabi Haifa, Cohen, born in the San Jose suburb of Mountain View, accessed whatever superpowers he could summon to keep one of the game’s all-time greats from finding the back of the net when Maccabi Haifa host PSG in the group stage. It wasn’t to be, as Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Kylian Mbappe all found the back of the net in a 3-1 win for PSG, but Cohen and his side put in an admirable performance, with the American making a number of high-quality reflex saves on some of the world’s best players.

At halftime a few weeks later, Cohen found his Maccabi Haifa side 2-0 up on Juventus, one of the most powerful Italian clubs of the last 20 years. They held Juve to just three first-half shots, and Cohen had made a spectacular save on Dusan Vlahovic just before the break.

It’s a fascinating journey for a player whose college career almost never got going. UC San Diego head coach Jon Pascale said that the Tritons nearly passed on Cohen as a college player. “To be honest with you, he had just a shocker of a game that we watched. We were there with several other Division I schools and it was just one of those games where he just didn’t play well. So we walked away โ€” and I think everybody else did as well โ€” saying ‘no’ and crossing him off our list.”

But Cohen, a smart high school student looking to pursue an engineering degree, wouldn’t let the Tritons go, interested in the school’s highly-ranked engineering program as much as the soccer team. Division II schools are allowed to hold tryouts, so Cohen was invited to train with the squad, and grasped the opportunity, eventually securing an offer.

It’s a theme of Cohen’s entire career, as a player who has been consistently overlooked until he forces the hands of those in charge. “He’s just one of those guys that I think has always had to work for his time and his minutes,” Pascale told The Sporting News. “He has some natural ability comprised with a great determination, great work ethic, and great resolve as a guy who’s been told ‘no’ probably his whole life and has kept coming back and kept pushing forward.”

Josh Cohen of UC San Diego
UC San Diego goalkeeper Josh Cohen celebrates saving a penalty in 2013.

After his four-year college career, where he made 51 appearances for the Tritons and earned the most shutouts (22) in the school’s Division II history โ€” oh, and he was also on the UC San Diego ski team, winning aย USCSA Southwest Collegiate Conference league title โ€” Cohen bounced around between lower league clubs before finding time with Phoenix Rising and Sacramento Republic. He would stay for three combined years between those two clubs, and came close to 100 appearances across his USL Championship career, playing with Didier Drogba at Phoenix.

That was the boost Cohen needed as in 2019 he made the move to Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Premier League. Cohen, of Jewish heritage, saw this as an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

โ€œIt was something that he was really passionate about and wanted to pursue,โ€ said Sacramento Republic General Manager Todd Dunivantย to the USL Championship official website. โ€œWe said, โ€˜look, Josh, we will absolutely explore this, but it has to work for all sides.’ In this case we were able to secure what we felt was a really good deal for Josh and he got ultimately to move on as well.โ€

Cohen leads Maccabi Haifa to Champions League

Cohen doesn’t count as a foreign player on the Maccabi Haifa roster as someone of Jewish heritage, and as teammates with former Haifa captain Dekel Keinan at Sacramento Republic, he had established a connection to the club. “The moment that Maccabi Haifa [called], they asked me about him and I didn’t hesitate,” Keinan told ESPN. “I knew he will be a great addition for the team, even if you will be a backup ‘keeper for a while.”

It couldn’t have gone better. Cohen joined Maccabi Haifa ahead of the 2019/20 season, and in classic Josh Cohen style, it took him just three-and-a-half games to earn the starting spot. He entered at halftime after an injury to starter Guy Haimov, and he would sit just two more matches the rest of the league season as Maccabi Haifa finished second in the Israeli Premier League behind perennial champions Maccabi Tel Aviv. Cohen would be a part of 11 clean sheets across his 31 matches played that season, and it only got better from there.

The following season (2020/21), Maccabi Haifa would win the Israeli Premier League title, finishing ahead of Maccabi Tel Aviv by a point atop the regular season standings before polishing off the campaign with an unbeaten 10-match Championship round to hoist the title.

Cohen’s defense conceded just 29 goals in 36 matches, the best defensive record in the league that season, including a 26-match regular season where Cohen earned more clean sheets (13) than goals conceded (12) in his 22 appearances. In the four early-season matches he was sent to the bench, the team conceded eight goals, failing to keep a clean sheet.

At the culmination of the campaign American would see himself voted Player of the Season for the entire league as a result, a resounding accomplishment for a goalkeeper, a position often left in the shadows.

“He has these pretty special qualities with his reflexes and his ability to makes saves โ€” big saves, where you’re thinking ‘no way he can get to that ball,'” said Pascale. “He has such control over his body.

“Josh’s feet are no slouch, he could have played left-back for us. He was a good field player, he can run, his touch was good, and he understands the game pretty well. Josh is a really intelligent guy, so he’s a student of the game, and when he really decided to buckle down and study the professional game, he just developed so much.”

Josh Cohen of Maccabi Haifa and Harry Kane of Tottenham
Josh Cohen of Maccabi Haifa and Harry Kane of Tottenham battle for a ball in Europa League Qualifying, October 2020.

That would lead Cohen to taste the top European competition for the first time, where Maccabi Haifa slotted into the first qualifying round of the 2021/22 Champions League. The team fell 3-1 on aggregate to Kazakhstani side Kairat, highlighted by a 2-0 second-leg road defeat that saw Kairat put five of their six shots on frame, finding the back of the net with two of them.

Cohen, however, had found his home. He would help Maccabi Haifa repeat as Israeli Premier League champions the following season (2021/22), finishing eight points above Hapoel Baer-Sheva in the final standings. Cohen’s club once again had the best defensive record in the league, with the American playing every single minute of the regular season between the sticks and earning 16 clean sheets across the campaign.

That gave the side another shot at the Champions League, and they haven’t disappointed. This time, the Israeli champion entered the competition in the second qualifying round, where Maccabi Haifa promptly upset Greek giants Olympiakos 5-1 on aggregate, punctuated by a stunning 4-0 win on the road in Piraeus.

They downed Cypriot champions Apollon Limassol in the third qualifying round, this time winning the home leg by a 4-0 scoreline. Needing to win just one more two-legged matchup, they skated by Serbian giants Red Star Belgrade 3-2 on aggregate thanks to a 90th minute own-goal that saw Cohen and company go through to the group stage for the first time since the 2009/10 season, when their goalkeeper was a senior in high school.

In their Champions League group stage opener, Cohen and Maccabi Haifa kept Benfica scoreless through the first half before a quickfire double after the break saw them fall 2-0.

Will Cohen make the USA World Cup team?

Unfortunately, it seems as if Cohen’s exploits haven’t quite been enough to turn the head of U.S. National Team head coach Gregg Berhalter, who claimed in early September that he’s happy with the goalkeeping talent he currently has in the squad, which is younger overall. โ€œHeโ€™s playing Champions League, and thatโ€™s great,โ€ Berhalter said. โ€œWeโ€™re watching every game he plays. I donโ€™t see a lot of uncertainty in the goalkeeping position. I think we have guys that have proven it and done a great job for us in the past.โ€

Cohen was left off the September camp roster, even with an injury to Zack Steffen, with Matt Turner, Ethan Horvath, and Sean Johnson selected. Even if Cohen misses out on a chance to make the World Cup, he’s still done far more than anyone could have possibly fathomed for a teenager with Santa Clara Sporting Club.

From facing Cal Baptist and Chico State on the beaches of San Diego to saving shots off the foot of Lionel Messi across a 10-year span, it’s been a wild ride for Josh Cohen, and there’s much to be said for finding your home. On Wednesday, Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa, Israel is just that for 30-year-old Jewish goalkeeper Josh Cohen.

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