Even when those around him started to ask questions, Kristijan Kahlina held the course. Now 33 and entering his fifth season as Charlotte FC’s number one, his steadfast determination and bet on his own abilities is paying off.
Header image via Field Level Media
Age 25 and turning out for Gorica, a team in the second division of his native Croatia, Kristijan Kahlina’s loved ones thought it might be time to think of a career away from the sticks.
“Some people in my circle were thinking, ‘you’re 25, it’s time to look to your future’,” he recalls. “But all the time I was living my dream, and now I’m living my dream. My dream was to be a professional athlete.”
Despite spending eight years in the youth setup of Croatia’s most successful club, Dinamo Zagreb, the budding shot-stopper failed to make a first team appearance for the Modri, eventually landing with amateur side Vinogradar before bouncing around a number of outfits in the lower climbs of the country’s football pyramid.
Linking up with Gorica in 2016, at the age of 24, was the launching pad for Kahlina to follow his dreams. Five years earlier, the club had won the second division, but failed to garner a license to play in the top tier. In Kahlina’s second season with the Goricani, the club would again win promotion, this time meeting the requirements to ply their trade at the top of the Croatian game. Even with Kahlina excelling on the field, attention from more established clubs failed to materialise.
“I thought I needed to be somewhere higher, but nobody recognised me as an athlete,” says Kahlina. “I didn’t have any support, someone from the side that would say ‘this guy is good’.
“It was all my own work. What can I show on the field?” he recalls thinking to himself.
“Even if my club moves from the second to the first division, maybe then I will get the chance. Maybe I will go from club to club.
“I was playing really well. Every time you measure yourself against something, or someone, you end up saying ‘this guy has someone behind them’. I always had a problem with that in my career. I’d never been interesting enough to someone outside.”
Kahlina’s football journey had started at a young age, as his father recognised his son’s desire to play goalkeeper from the moment he started watching sport. They’re memories that the Croatian stopper remembers fondly.
“My father had a ball. I was standing between open doors, playing goalie, and he was trying to throw the ball past me to hit the wall. He asked me if I wanted to be a keeper.
“My first thought was to dive. It was interesting for me. He brought a book from the library, and he managed my first steps into goalkeeping.”
Their games at home quickly evolved into informal training sessions on a nearby field, before Kahlina joined his school team and subsequently found a club. Even with his fervent desire to reach another level in the game, opportunities to progress were hard to come by.
Regardless, Kahlina continued to put in the work, and was always ably backed up by his parents.
“There were some really tough times, like when you don’t have a club,” he says. “I will say that they saw that I was working hard every day and I was loving football. If that was not the case, they would have said to me, ‘maybe it’s time to turn off, go to university or look for something else. They were really supportive.”
Gorica’s ascension to the top tier brought new challenges. The club brought in Laurentiu Branesucu on loan from Italian giants Juventus, in an attempt to bolster their defence with a stopper of a more obvious pedigree. Kahlina retained his position, making 86 appearances for the upstart outfit as they scrapped for survival in the top tier. His performances caught the attention of perennial Bulgarian champions Ludogrets, who initially signed the Croatian on a mid-season loan in 2021. Again, Kahlina was asked to prove himself in the face of impending competition.
“They had already signed a keeper, Sergio Padt from the Netherlands,” he explains. “His club, Groningen, did not let him leave straight away, so I was supposed to be there from March until May. That was a big risk for me, but I said to myself, ‘what can I lose?’ I will go there for myself, and then we will see. I went there. The owner was surprised, so in June they bought me too.”
While Kahlina started the bulk of the Bulgarian giant’s games in the opening months of the following season, an approach from Charlotte ended the duel for playing time prematurely. The move has been an unqualified success for the Croatian and The Crown. Kahlina has made 121 appearances in the past four seasons, winning the MLS’ Goalkeeper of the Year Award in 2024 off the back of the league’s stingiest defensive record and 12 clean sheets - with the Goalkeeper.com xG data team supporting the goalkeeper department’s work.
Kahlina credits his success to the support of his coaching staff. He describes a close but intense working relationship with coach Aron Hyde, who previously served as the USMNT goalkeeping specialist during the 2022 World Cup.
“He’s pushing me every day,” says Kahlina. “It’s not easy to hear every single day what you can do better, even when you play a really good game.
“There can be small things. I try to accept these things and just take in the information, and ask ‘what can I do better’?”
Charlotte have been led by former Aston Villa, Norwich, and Leicester City manager Dean Smith for the past three seasons. Under his auspices, the nascent franchise (Charlotte was founded in 2021, a year before Kahlina joined the roster) have progressed steadily, finishing fourth in the Eastern Conference last term before a round one exit after losing 3-1 to New York City. Despite that disappointment, Smith’s man management and solid defensive structures have clearly had an impact on Kahlina.
“I have a really good relationship with him [Smith],” says Kahlina. “He’s the coach that gives you support. We are on the same page on how we need to defend.
“In my first year, we had many balls behind our line, but last season and this pre-season, we haven’t had nearly as many.
“Overall, we are a compact team.”
The late development of Kahlina’s career can also be chalked up to the voracious appetite for learning he built over those early years. While he says Hyde does not bombard the goalkeepers with information, he’s open to looking for anything to improve his game, drawing on years of studying the greats as a means of self improvement.
“At the start I was watching Gianluigi Buffon. He was an unbelievable goalkeeper. Then also Manuel Neuer because of his shape. He was the first one to spread, all the way, with his hands and his feet. Marc-Andre Ter Stegen, because he’s my height [6’2”/1.88m], I was taking a lot from him.
“I’m really open to learning more. Until I came here, I was learning through watching on the TV - how someone jumped before the shot, how someone spread himself one against one. I didn’t used to have anyone that put me on the right path. Slowly we worked out was best for me. We haven’t got it all, but it’s 75% of the way there.”
With more eyes on US soccer ahead of the 2026 World Cup, Kahlina has a chance to solidify his status as one of the league’s best goalkeepers. If he’s only 75% of the way there, there seems no better time for this battle hardened dreamer to eke every last percentage point out of his reserves of talent.