Brad Friedel, the 43-year-old American goalkeeper, said today he will retire from soccer when Tottenham’s season ends next weekend.

That will end the professional career of probably the most-respected U.S.  player, in England — and perhaps around the world.

Friedel, however, was never quite as popular at home as he came to be in England and other precincts.

We can come up with several reasons for his muted popularity in the U.S. but it probably comes down to this:

He quit on the U.S. national team after the 2002 World Cup.

Yes, he played one more time for the U.S. side, in 2004, in a win over Poland. And he didn’t actually get around to saying he had given up on the national team till 2005.

But, effectively, he was done after playing a key role in the quarterfinal run at 2002 Korea/Japan.

And that never set well with many American fans who, like fans everywhere, want the coach and the country to decide when a player is done with the national team. Players are not supposed to choose the where and when to go.

It got worse. When Friedel finally got around to formalizing, in 2005, his decision of three years before, he said it was just too difficult to play for the national team when he had a career going strong in England.

Here is what he said, 10 years ago:

“I have loved every minute of it, but feel now is the right time to end my international career. Throughout my career I have been extremely lucky not to have suffered any major injuries. However, over the last 18 months or so I have sometimes been left feeling short of full fitness because of the strain of playing for my club and my country and the huge amount of long-haul travel involved.

“The English Premier League is incredibly demanding and over the remaining years of my professional career I want to give myself the best possible chance to continue to play at the highest level for my club.”

Can’t be much more direct than that.

He made it clear that club soccer in England was a higher priority for him than playing for his country. Which is about money, mostly. And Friedel was tired of having to go over to Costa Rica or Honduras or Mexico to play for the Yanks — who didn’t pay nearly as well as did Blackburn or Aston Villa.

To a lot of fans, you just don’t do that. You don’t give up on the national team at the peak of your career, especially the U.S. national team. I can’t remember any other U.S. player doing that.

(By comparison, Tim Howard, who is 36, has done this much more diplomatically. The current U.S. goalkeeper says he is taking off a year from the national team, then hopes to return. For a variety of reasons, I am certain Tim Howard is far more popular than is Friedel — in the U.S.)

Maybe Friedel knew himself well enough that he was slowing down. But it turns out he had another 13 years of English soccer in him, after the 2002 World Cup, and another 10 from the time he made official his quitting on the national team.

As recently as 2010-11, he started all 38 league matches for Tottenham during a season when he turned 40. (And a colleague at The National, a Spurs fan, says Friedel probably was the best Tottenham keeper he has seen.)

Friedel was not a fan favorite, back home, for other reasons, too.

He was hard to get to know — unlike his competitors for the goalkeeper job. There was the brash and colorful Tony Meola, keeper for the 1990 and 1994 World Cup teams, and there was the cerebral and accessible Kasey Keller, the No. 1 U.S. keeper at the 1998 and 2006 World Cups.

Friedel was sort of a blank slate. What did he think? What did he have to say? We never really knew because he rarely said anything, and I know because I was around that U.S. team a lot from 1989 through 2002.

Thinking back, he never seemed like he was having fun. And I’m not sure if he was close to anyone on the 2002 U.S. team. Maybe it was an age thing, by then. Maybe he felt aggrieved that he wasn’t No. 1 in 1994 and 1998.

Another factor was the accent.

No. Really.

After a few years in England, Friedel, an Ohio boy, began speaking with a slight English accent. It seems likely he was one of those people influenced by the speech patterns of those around him. (I had a cousin who worked in Germany two years and came home with a slight but unmistakable German accent.)

But on Friedel, it sounded ridiculous. Maybe even pretentious. Maybe even planned. It became A Thing, talked about (and often mocked) by U.S. fans. “So, he leaves the Columbus Crew and goes to England and a few years later he sounds like one of the Queen’s subjects? Who does he think he is fooling?”

Remember, in 2002 he was the goalkeeper for the most successful U.S. World Cup team. He stopped two penalties in that tournament, never before done in a World Cup, including one in the 1-1 draw with South Korea. If he doesn’t make that stop, the U.S. doesn’t get out of the group.

He had the shutout in the 2-0 round-of-16 victory over Mexico, and gave up just the one goal in the 1-0 loss to Germany in the quarterfinals.

Remember how big that 2002 team was? In that tournament, it seemed like the Yanks were about to be something special in world soccer — and much earlier than expected. The win over heavily favored Portugal to open the tournament. The draw with the host Koreans. Knocking out Mexico. Playing Germany close.

It was the team of  Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley and Brian McBride and Frankie Hejduk and Claudio Reyna and Jeff Agoos. They were young and exciting and on the rise, and I still feel that World Cup team did more for U.S. soccer than any other. Really.

Not even the 1994 team, which reached the second round, at home, did as much. Nor did the 1990 team, which ended the 40-year World Cup drought and ensured the 1994 World Cup would be played in the States.

Friedel was The Man in the nets in 2002, only 33 …

And he quit on that team.

That will not come up in the tributes to Friedel in England in the next week, with references to his longevity and his record consecutive-Premier-League-games streak.

He says he is returning to the U.S. to be a commentator for Fox.

It will be interesting to see if he brings the English accent back with him.

It will be interesting too, to see if he can create a connection with American fans that he lost a decade ago.