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Now 22 he signed for Manchester United as a teenager and actually made his debut for the Reds in front of 60,000 in the Maracana Stadium in Rio when they played South Melbourne in the FIFA World Club Championship.
That was in January four years ago and after one substitute appearance in the League Cup he made his Premiership debut in March 2001 at Old Trafford against Leicester when Fabien Barthez picked up a thigh injury in the warm up. He kept a clean sheet in a 2-0 with two goals in the last two minutes.
That was to be his last appearance for United and in 2001/02 season he initially went to feeder club Royal Antwerp before returning in November to spend much of the rest of the season with Oldham for whom he made seventeen league appearances.
He ended the season on trial at Charlton where he played two reserve team games and that was enough to convince Alan Curbishley to spend an initial £200,000 to sign him on a permanent basis.
With Charlton having three keepers he spent all last season alternating with Ben Roberts for the goalkeeper’s place on the subs bench. Unfortunately on the day that Dean Kiely was sent off it was Roberts’ turn on the bench and he missed out.
This season there is added competition from Simon Royce but with the form of Kiely the breakthrough is difficult.
And so he has arrived at the Turf, just like Orr and Wood on an initial one month deal, and will be hoping to win a place in our first team to gain some further experience.
He is one of a number of American goalkeepers in English football at the moment but probably the only one to have played for England.
A welcome too for Paul from Clarets Mad.