The Keeper

by Tim Howard

  As long as it wasn’t my fault, I could stay on the team.

  It was the worst possible mindset a keeper can have. A keeper needs to do everything in his power to stop the ball. Period.

  In one game, I punched a ball out of the box. It was a weaker punch than I’d intended, and Rio admonished me, “Tim, you’ve got to catch the fucking thing.”

  So the next time the ball came toward me, in the same game, I caught it. But the catch was loose, just barely in my arms. Roy Keane looked at me ferociously. “Punch that fucking thing,” Roy said. His voice was laced with venom. “Punch it next time.”

  Somehow, I needed to get back to a place where I had conviction, where I could take a risk. I needed to be Tony Meola, charging fearlessly out of his goal. Or Kasey Keller, unflappable in the face of uncertainty. And I’ll give the guy credit where it’s due: I could even have used a dose of Brad Friedel’s bluster, his bullheadedness.

  The fans noticed my timidity, every bit as much as my teammates and coaches had. One afternoon, a little old lady followed me around the grocery store. She was older than my mother, this woman. And I’m telling you: she glared at me. There she was in the dairy section as I put milk in the cart. Then again by the breads aisle.

  Each time, I’d walked away, only to have her follow me to my next stop.

  Finally, in the produce section, I looked right at her and spoke.

  “Hi,” I said. “How are you?”

  She glowered at me. “Well, I’d be doing a lot better,” she said, “if you would stop dropping the bloody ball.”

  When we decided to have a baby, Laura paid the same meticulous attention to the details of her fertility that she had to every other aspect of our lives. She purchased an ovulation predictor kit. She mastered the art of peeing on sticks. She monitored her body temperature, the slightest change in her cycle.

  “I mean, we might as well try to maximize our chances,” she said. “I know so many people who tried to have a baby for so long.”

  In December, Laura and I flew to Marbella, Spain. I was so desperate for a break, even a short one. I needed to catch my breath before going back to the field.

  “I’m going to sit on that beach,” I said, “and do nothing at all.”

  Laura was changing in the bathroom. I walked around the room picking up everything we’d need by the water: sunscreen, Laura’s sun hat, books, an extra T-shirt for me, a football for tossing in the sand. Extra towels. Beach chairs.

  “Come on, girl,” I called to her. “I want to get started with my doing nothing.”

  My arms were loaded by then with items in both hands and chairs wedged precariously under each arm.

  Laura opened the bathroom door. “Tim?” Laura said. There was a glint in her eye. “I’m ovulating.”

  I dropped everything. I didn’t even try to set it all down. Hats, chairs, sunscreen, football, went crashing to the floor.

  I was by her side in two seconds flat.

  The beach could wait.

  Back home, 11 days later, Laura emerged from the bathroom waving a white stick in the air.

  “Tim!” she exclaimed. She was laughing and glowing, the same way she had at the W hotel in Times Square. “Tim, guess what?! There are two lines.”

  A pregnancy test. Two lines.

  Clayton ran over to her and danced around in circles. You could see him wondering what the fuss was about. A walk? A treat?

  Laura didn’t even look at him.

  She wiggled the stick. “Look. The lines are really, really faint,” she said, “but they’re there.”

  I squinted. Sure enough, if I looked hard, I could see them. There were two blue lines.

  I allowed that to sink in. Two lines meant baby. We were having a baby.

  I hadn’t felt this excited since our wedding day.

  At that moment, nothing else mattered. Not Tony Coton, not Alex Ferguson, not Roy Keane’s cursing at me, not whether I would play in the next game.

  Laura and I were going to be parents. We had started our family.

  I forgot all about my professional slump. With this news, everything on God’s green earth suddenly seemed as good as it gets.

  By now I was calling Mulch to ask him what he saw me doing wrong in my games. Since I wasn’t getting any feedback from Coton, Mulch had become my go-to guy. He watched every match, and he was honest.

  “You’re not playing like yourself,” he said. “You’re stiff. Your face is tight. You look like you’re not enjoying yourself.”

  He was right; I hated playing small like that. I hated feeling afraid.

  “Just be Tim Howard,” he said. “If you can get back to doing what you do, you’ll be fine.”

  My mom visited.

  I could feel her watching. I left for practice in the morning. Came home. Napped. When I got up, I didn’t say much.

  When the two of us were alone, Mom said, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you still love soccer?”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  At the end of the 2004–2005 season, we met Arsenal again in the FA Cup final. Roy Carroll played. I watched from the sidelines.

  By the end of 90 minutes, the game was tied, 0–0. We went into overtime, and still no goals.

  About 15 minutes before the end of the game, it seemed clear: we were headed for a penalty kick shootout. Ferguson turned around.

  “Tim,” he said. “Go warm up.”

  Good, I thought. He’s going to put me in for the shootout, and I’m going to win this game for the team.

  I warmed up, then went back to the bench. Waited. The clock ticked by. Players ran up and down the field.

  I stood again, jogged up and down the touchline. I stretched. I wanted to stay fresh.

  When I sat down, I watched the back of Ferguson’s head. Any minute, he was going to turn around and send me in.

  The whistle blew. The teams started moving toward the goal for the shootout.

  I waited, but Ferguson didn’t turn around. He didn’t say a word. He sat there watching as Roy Carroll took his place in the box.

  I wanted to scream. I can do this. I can handle penalty kick shootouts like no one else I know.

  Today I’d have spoken up. Today I’d have reminded him: I’m right here. I’m ready. But on that day, I didn’t, and I never went in. We lost that shootout and the game.

  Later, in the locker room, Ferguson ripped into the players one by one. Someone must have told Roy that I’d been warming up, because by the time Ferguson got to him, he snapped.

  “Well,” shouted Roy, staring right at Ferguson. “If you wanted to fucking put Tim in, you should have fucking put Tim in!” His face was red and his eyes burned like fire.

  The stress of this season. I’m telling you. It was going to take us both down.

  We finished the season third in the table. It was only the fourth time in 16 years that we hadn’t earned a league trophy.

  In June, Laura and I returned to Memphis—back to our house, back to our life there. We sat by the pool and watched her belly grow and waited for that baby to come.

  Not long after we returned, my phone rang. Alex Ferguson was on the other end of the line. You know something’s up when the club manager calls you at home, from another continent.

  “Did Tony tell you?” he asked.

  “Tell me what?” Tony hadn’t talked to me since the season ended.

  “We’re releasing Roy Carroll. We’ve signed Edwin van der Sar.”

  Van der Sar was a highly regarded keeper from Fulham. He was long and lanky, cool under pressure. His nickname was “the Ice Rabbit.”

  “We need competition for this position,” Ferguson said. “Nothing’s set in stone. The first keeper job’s up for grabs.”

  He was reassuring me, but I didn’t buy it.

  “Okay,” I said. I hung up, then walked into the kitchen. Laura was there, her belly as round as a basketbal
l now.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Alex Ferguson.”

  She looked surprised.

  “He just signed Edwin van der Sar,” I said. I explained who Edwin was. I told her that Ferguson had said I might still be the starting keeper.

  “But it’s all a load of bullshit,” I said. I knew the truth.

  Sometimes a club’s actions say it all. My platooning with Carroll made it obvious that they didn’t believe in me as their regular keeper. Now they followed that up by acquiring someone who was a big star. Their intentions were clear.

  In a few months, I’d have a child—a son, I was so sure of that. I didn’t want my child to see his dad sitting on the bench. I didn’t care how many millions of dollars I could earn watching from the sidelines. I was determined to play.

  #24

  Life as Edwin’s backup was more or less what I expected. Tony fawned over him the way he once did over me. During trainings Edwin informed him what drills he wanted to do, and Tony did exactly as he was told.

  “How’s training going?” Mulch asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t get any feedback.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tony talks to Edwin,” I said. “That’s it.”

  Mulch didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was thinking, That Tony Coton is a worm, and you need to get out from underneath him.

  Edwin, on the other hand, wasn’t a bad guy; he was unfailingly polite, always a gentleman around me. But we were from different worlds, different cultures.

  It was clear, too, that Edwin wasn’t going to mentor me, or anybody else. He was focused on his own game, nothing more.

  Edwin really was a terrific keeper, though. He had reach and agility, with an uncanny instinct for anticipating where the ball would land. At six feet six, he could stretch so far in goal that he made near-impossible saves look easy. Most of all, he was clear and direct with the defenders, positioning them with such authority and decisiveness that he often didn’t even need to make those saves.

  I can learn from this guy, I thought. If I don’t let my ego get in the way.

  Edwin can make me better.

  We learned that the baby was breech. Laura and the doctor scheduled a C-section for September 5.

  Laura’s mom stayed with us in England, and my mom arrived two days before the procedure. Together, they fussed about the house. They folded and refolded baby onesies. They organized diapers, prepared heaps of food.

  Our moms were so different—as different as night and day. Mine was a flower-power immigrant mom, quiet in demeanor, but a fierce political liberal. And Laura’s mom was a friendly Southerner, a devout Baptist with conservative political views. Before, long, these two women would be grandmothers to the same child, providing both yin and yang in the baby’s life.

  When September 5 rolled around, I was a nervous wreck. I was jittery as we walked into the hospital, jittery as I put on scrubs and they prepped Laura for the procedure. And although I did my best to stay cool, I was completely off-the-charts terrified when they sliced into her.

  But then the doctor said those three incredible words—it’s a boy. We heard our baby boy cry, and a few minutes later a nurse handed him to me, all bundled up in a flannel blanket. And then I was holding him.

  My son.

  “Look at him,” I said. “Just look.” He’d been in the world mere minutes, but I was already completely head over heels in love.

  “Yeah,” said Laura. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  We sat there quietly for a while, then I turned to Laura. “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve ever held a baby.”

  She laughed. “Well, you look like a natural, Tim.”

  A while later, I threw open the double doors to the waiting room. There were the grandmothers. (The grandmothers! My mother was a grandmother now!)

  They looked up hopefully. Nervously.

  “It’s a boy,” I announced. Later, my mom would tell me that I was wearing the biggest grin she’d ever seen on me in my whole life. “His name is Jacob.”

  In an instant, they were out of their seats, hugging and kissing me.

  “How can you be a father?” my mother said. She planted a kiss on my cheek. I felt wet tears on my skin. “How can you possibly be a father, when I can still remember holding you?”

  The next morning I returned to training; the moments I spent with Laura on the day of the C-section would be all the paternity break I was going to get.

  My teammates offered congratulations and clapped me on the back. Then Alex Ferguson approached.

  “Is all well?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s a boy. We named him Jacob.”

  Ferguson looked like he approved.

  “Good name,” he said. “Jacob. That’s a good, strong name for a boy.”

  Jacob was an easy, angelic baby. He took his morning nap and his afternoon nap on schedule. He ate well, he grew quickly,

  When he was four weeks old, he slept four hours at a stretch. By six weeks, he was sleeping six hours.

  His eyes were bright and curious. I made all kinds of moony faces at him.

  “That’s right,” I’d say. “I’m your daddy, Jacob. And I love you forever and ever and ever.”

  I couldn’t stop touching him. It was unconscious, almost primal, the way my fingers drifted over to the curve of his cheek, the downy wisps of his hair.

  I rocked him to sleep, I burped him, I buttoned him into his little peanut onesie, I pulled miniature sports jerseys over his head. I lay down next to him and gazed at him.

  When he napped, I peeked in on him just to make sure he was breathing. It was like I feared he’d be taken away from us somehow, whisked away as if he really had been too good to be true all along. We bought baby monitors to hear him at night. We bought a movement sensor, one that was capable of detecting the up-and-down motions of a baby’s breath; if it didn’t detect any motion for 20 seconds, an alarm sounded.

  One afternoon, that alarm went off, and Laura and I dashed to the nursery as fast as our legs would carry us. I took the stairs two at a time, then bounded into his room.

  There, standing at the center of the room, was my mom, rocking Jacob.

  “I’m sorry,” my mom said. She had this guilty look on her face. “I heard him wake up, so I came in to get him. I picked him up without turning off the alarm. I forgot all about that thing.”

  Laura and I took deep breaths. Everything was fine.

  Just before I learned about Edwin coming to United, I’d signed an extension on my Manchester United contract.

  Some keepers would surely have been content to remain the Man U backup. There’s great fame, money, and royal treatment. And, like a backup quarterback in football, the backup keeper is rarely used, so all this would come without tremendous day-in, day-out pressure.

  But it wasn’t for me. I had things I wanted to accomplish.

  Dan arranged a meeting with Manchester United chief executive David Gill. He told David what I wanted—respectfully, firmly, clearly.

  “Man U is a great club,” Dan said. “We respect your decision to sign a new starting keeper, but Tim doesn’t want to be a backup. We’d like to find another place for him.”

  Gill said that they’d like me to stay at Man U. They needed a reliable number two keeper as cover for Edwin. He added, “Top goalkeepers are extremely tough to find,” implying that I could be at Manchester United, at least as a backup, for years to come.

  But he respected that I wanted to play and that I had been a good pro during my time at the club. David and Dan reached an understanding. If I gave them a good year as a backup, they would help me move to a place I could play regularly.

  Clayton was the only one who didn’t adore Jacob from the start. He sniffed the baby when we brought him home, was curious about this new plaything. But when Jacob didn’t play back, Clayton took offense.

  If Clayton was lounging on th
e sofa and we sat down with Jacob in our arms, Clayton would coolly get off the couch and head to a far corner of the room. He’d sulk at us, as if saying, Make your choice, people: it’s going to be me, or that baby.

  “It’s not going to be you, Clayton,” I’d grumble.

  “You be nice to Clayton,” Laura would scold me. “That poor dog’s whole world has been turned upside down.”

  That season was one of stark contrasts. On the one hand, there was the warmth of my home life. Every day, I fell in love with Jacob all over again. It was as if every new thing he mastered—smiling, then cooing, then laughing; making fists and picking up toys; pushing himself up, then rolling over; sitting up, then pulling up on furniture—gave me a whole new way to love him.

  Then there was work—the coolness of Edwin, the aloofness of Tony Coton, the chill that came over me whenever I was in that locker room. I wanted to get out of there. Go home to my wife and my baby.

  But I kept watching Edwin and making mental notes.

  When I dove, I caught the ball with my hands. But when Edwin dove, he cradled it with his wrists, his forearms, the curve of his shoulders and back. I imitated what Edwin did, and once I got it down, I made it my own.

  Edwin also had this way of fielding those tricky low balls that sometimes come in so close to your body that you can’t quite catch them with your hands. They’re easy to fumble or let roll under you. But Edwin threw his body on the ground so quickly that the ball bounced off his chest. Only then would he try to grab it with his hands.

  I made that one my own, too.

  Most of all, I observed Edwin’s confidence. Nobody ever yelled at Edwin to catch or to parry a shot.

  I watched. I learned. I sat on the bench. Sometimes Ferguson put me in reserve games.

  But there was that voice again: You’re never going to become great playing in reserve games. Go somewhere that you can become the best.

  As it became clear which teams would need a new goalkeeper for the following season, Dan began to explore the marketplace. The club that I was most interested in was Everton. My former United defender Phil Neville had transferred to Everton at the start of this season, and his brother, Gary, said he was quite happy.