The Keeper

by Tim Howard

  Later that week, I learned I had two broken vertebrae. I was in the training room with Danny when the results came back. I heard his side of the conversation only.

  “Okay, two vertebrae . . . fractured . . . right . . . and how much time should he . . . four to six . . .”

  That’s when I panicked. Four to six months?

  I couldn’t afford to be out for that long. I’d miss important World Cup qualifiers. I’d miss the end of the season. I’d miss so much training. I’d miss, I felt sure, next year’s World Cup.

  I was 34 years old; if I missed this one, would I ever get another shot?

  For a few moments, I wondered if this was the beginning of the end.

  Danny hung up the phone. “Okay, Tim,” he said. “You’re going to need to stay off it for four to six weeks.”

  Weeks. Not months. Relief suddenly flooded over me. Weeks I could do.

  Daddy, daddy, pick me up.” Ali’s arms stretched toward me. She was six years old, missing two of her front teeth, and with her untamed curls she looked every bit the wild child.

  “He can’t pick you up,” said Laura, retrieving Ali’s stuffed animals off the floor. “Remember? He’s hurt.”

  I’d come home to Memphis to recover. Laura let me spend much of that time lying on the sofa of what was now her house. She served me food and beverages, and when I was well enough, she let me rummage through the refrigerator on my own.

  I admired Laura. Even during the worst of our divorce, Laura had made sure that our kids saw only goodness and warmth within their family. Even at her angriest, she never stopped welcoming me into the house.

  “Please, Daddy?” asked Ali. “Just for a minute?”

  Jacob looked up from his book. “He can’t.”

  “Come on, Ali,” said Laura, trying to distract her. “Help me feed Clayton.” Clayton, an old man now, lifted his head and staggered to his feet at the sound of food in his bowl.

  It was nice to be there. We were a different kind of family than we’d once been, but we were still a family.

  “Hey, Tim,” Laura said. “My mom’s coming over tonight to watch the kids. You’re welcome to hang around while she’s here.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Where are you going?”

  Laura lifted an eyebrow. It had been nearly three years since we’d broken up.

  “Out,” she said. I noticed she had a twinkle in her eye.

  When I returned to the field, I played my 300th game for Everton. We drew 0–0, and that shutout just happened to be my 100th clean sheet.

  After that long month of not playing, it felt terrific to be back.

  Thank God that injury wasn’t worse, I thought. Thank God I can keep doing this for a while longer.

  NEW FACES

  A few weeks after I came back, Sir Alex Ferguson announced that he’d be leaving Manchester United after 27 years at the helm. You can imagine how nuts the media went with that news. In the time he’d been with Man U, Ferguson had won 13 league titles, five FA Cups, four League Cups, and two Champions League crowns. The man was an institution.

  Manchester United is a publicly traded company. Stockholders hate uncertainty. While some Premier League teams might drag out a search, interviewing multiple candidates, Manchester United didn’t have that luxury. They needed a replacement, and fast.

  The English bookmakers placed their odds on David Moyes.

  That week, David called me and five other senior Everton players—Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Tony Hibbert, Leon Osman, and Phil Neville—to a secret meeting in a Liverpool hotel. It could be about only one thing.

  I almost dreaded walking through that door. I knew that when I walked out, everything was going to be different.

  “I’ve taken a job,” David told us. “I’ve accepted the manager’s position at Manchester United. Saturday will be my final game.”

  Hearing the news, I was at once devastated and happy. We were losing one hell of a manager, but I was thrilled for David. As I knew from experience, playing or coaching at United was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and David possessed the qualities that I believed would make him a good fit. He had a history of nurturing young, talented players. He had a fierce work ethic. He had a progressive, analytical approach to the game. He was a tough son of a gun, another fiery Scot. Everton didn’t have the glittering record that Man U did but neither did it have its vast resources. If David had done this well with Everton’s kitty, who knew what he could accomplish with United’s?

  On May 12, his final game, we played West Ham at home. When David arrived at Goodison, he was met with applause and cheers by stadium stewards. The stands were filled with handmade signs:

  THANK YOU DAVID MOYES.

  GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK.

  THANK YOU FOR 11 YEARS OF MEMORIES.

  When he appeared on the touchline, every fan in the stadium stood. Throughout the game, they sang his name. After it was over—a satisfying 2–0 win, thanks to two great goals by Kevin Mirallas—the players lined up along the edge of the field so David could walk between us, honor guard style.

  If anyone could ever fill Alex Ferguson’s shoes at Manchester United, Moyes could. But I swear, I couldn’t imagine Goodison without him.

  During the summer Bill Kenwright announced that Roberto Martinez, who’d been at Wigan Athletic, would replace Moyes as Everton’s new manager. Although Wigan had been in the Premier League only since 2005—and some years barely escaped relegation to the second division—he’d taken them this year on a memorable FA Cup run, beating heavily favored Manchester City in the final.

  Roberto had a reputation for being classy and confident, affable and intelligent. Officially, I was optimistic. But in truth I felt wary and defensive. Everton was my team. He was the newbie. He’d be bringing a different style with him, not to mention a new goalkeeping coach. He was going to have to earn the right to belong. He and his whole gang.

  The U.S. National Team had seen some big changes, too.

  After the 2012 season, I’d learned that Landon planned to take a break from playing soccer. He was exhausted, fried from a decade and a half of nonstop, all-consuming competition. Even if I understood, I worried.

  I was concerned for the team, first of all. We had critical World Cup qualifiers coming up at the time and Landon was our best player. We needed him. I feared for Landon, too. He was already past 30, the age when many players retire . . . or are phased out.

  Take time off when you’re 31 years old, and you risk never getting your place back—even if you’re Landon Donovan.

  When I heard the news, I picked up the phone to call Landon. Maybe I could make one final push, convince him to reconsider. People sometimes just need a nudge from a friend. Hang in there, remember how important these games are—to you, to your teammates, to the fans.

  I dialed his number but before I heard the phone ring on his end, I hung up.

  Landon was a ferocious competitor. If he was making this choice, it’s not because he hadn’t thought it through. And if that was the case, then he certainly didn’t need to hear my opinion on the matter.

  The same spring, Jürgen had left Carlos off the roster for some key World Cup qualifying matches, moving in some less experienced defenders. These guys weren’t better, but they were younger, and they would fight hard to establish themselves and their careers.

  Carlos was getting phased out.

  It’s part of what goes on in every World Cup cycle, but it was difficult to watch it happening to a friend. To me, Carlos was one of the best team captains the U.S. has ever had, and he was still a strong defender.

  But that’s soccer: your position can disappear in an instant. Already, so many of the guys with whom I’d come up through the ranks were gone.

  Carlos had a choice: he could sit on the bench, and maybe come in as a sub in the late stages of the game. Or he could step aside for the new generation.

  He called me and I asked him what he planned to do.

  “I don’t kno
w, Tim. I really don’t.”

  We talked for a while. Then I said, “If you ask me, you’ve got a legacy to protect. Do you sacrifice it for a few more years of hoping you can play for twenty minutes?”

  There was a long silence. Then Carlos said, “I know what I need to do.”

  And by the tone of his voice, I knew: Carlos wasn’t going to be my captain anymore.

  Between Landon’s sabbatical and Carlos’s departure from the team, I suddenly I felt like the last of a generation.

  It wasn’t just professionally that things were changing.

  Laura called me up one afternoon. “Tim,” she said. “I’ve met someone. His name is Trey.”

  There’s the joy, I thought. There’s the joy in her voice that I remember so well.

  This was the Laura who had once called her mom from a Times Square hotel to tell her we were getting married. She sounded as excited as when she’d found her wedding dress, the one she never got to wear. This was the voice so bubbly that it broke through the Manchester gloom during my first weeks in England. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” she’d said, back when she and I were just beginning our new life together.

  Her tone now was unmistakable: Laura had fallen in love again.

  I was happy for her. She deserved better than being a professional athlete’s ex-wife. She deserved someone who adored her completely, someone who wouldn’t ignore her calls because he was too busy thinking about his next game.

  “He doesn’t play soccer, does he?”

  She laughed. Of course he didn’t. She knew better than to make the same mistake twice.

  A few weeks later, I made one of my lightning-fast visits home. Laura had arranged for all of us—her, me, Trey, Jacob, Ali, and Trey’s kids, 13-year-old Savannah, and 10-year-old Jake—to meet up at a Memphis Grizzlies basketball game.

  I was nervous. What if this Trey and I didn’t click? What if he didn’t want me around? How was this guy going to affect my relationship with my kids?

  Before tipoff Laura said, “Trey wanted to make sure you knew he didn’t have to come tonight. He said if you preferred to spend time with the kids without him around, he understands.”

  That, right there, told me everything I needed to know. Trey understood exactly how important my time with the kids was. And he was making it clear that he wasn’t going to get in the way of it.

  “Of course he should come,” I said.

  When I met him—when I saw the way he smiled at Laura, the way he laughed so easily with his kids and my own—I knew Trey was going to be in all our lives for a long time.

  The start of the 2013–2014 season, when Roberto Martinez came on as manager, was like an old-time high school dance, with the boys on one side of the wall and the girls on the other. Everyone was sizing each other up, but nobody knew who was who, or what to expect. I was determined to keep an open mind about Roberto and his crew. But the truth was, I didn’t feel particularly receptive to new ideas; I had a set way of working and I didn’t want anybody messing with it.

  And Roberto did things differently. Our training sessions were shorter, but higher intensity than I was used to. Roberto was transforming our style of play, encouraging us to focus more on ball possession—and not just in attack. He wanted our defenders to pass the ball out from the back rather than hitting long clearances. It would take some getting used to.

  During the transfer window, Roberto brought in some new players—James McCarthy from Wigan; Romelu Lukaku, a Belgian international from Chelsea; and Gareth Barry, an English international from Manchester City, the last two on one-year loans.

  I liked them all, especially Romelu. At 21, Rom was already a major talent, as driven as any player I’d ever seen. Yet he was humble, too, easy to be around. He didn’t party, didn’t care for flashy cars or the nightclub scene. In his spare time, he studied tapes of the world’s great strikers; he’d made a highlight reel of plays by Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Robin van Persie, and Wayne Rooney. He relaxed with video games—soccer video games, of course.

  After practice, Rom fired shots at me the way Ruud once had, both of us honing our skills. He may have been on loan, but he felt like an Evertonian, and he immediately endeared himself to the fans. In his first Everton game, away to West Ham, he scored the winning goal. In his Goodison debut, he’d banged in two more. But it was the Merseyside derby that sealed the deal. Not only did he score twice against Liverpool, helping us draw 3–3, he later declared the whole event to be his favorite moment in club soccer.

  It was a reinvigorating season for me. I was an old dog, and it was hard for me to learn new tricks. But I was learning that there was more than just one way of playing this game.

  I thought I’d seen it all by now, like Kasey once had. I had played so many games, experienced so many emotions, I thought nothing could surprise me anymore. But I was amazed by how calm I felt with so much change swirling around me.

  It was during that season, the one in which we hurtled toward the 2014 World Cup, that I lost my fear.

  WORLD CUP TRAINING

  Jürgen selected a 30-man roster for World Cup training camp; since only 23 of us could go to Brazil, it meant we’d practice together for a few weeks . . . then he’d send seven of us home.

  I was glad to see Landon’s name on the 30-man list.

  He had come back from his sabbatical in time for the 2013 Gold Cup. There he had stolen the show, scoring five goals and adding seven assists.

  To my mind, Landon proved—again—that he was still the best of the best.

  Of course, Jürgen had made it clear all along, both in the media and to each of us, that nobody’s job was safe—that just because someone had been to a previous World Cup, it didn’t mean they were automatically qualified to play in the upcoming one. The media made a huge, stupid thing out of that, but frankly, it shouldn’t have been news. I’d always understood that my job could be taken away in a moment. There’s never a time when someone’s not gunning for your position. It’s true for every player on that field, and nobody ever forgets that.

  So Jürgen’s “nobody’s job is safe” sound byte got the media in a lather. But for us it was business as usual.

  We trained at Stanford University—a sprawling, lush, immaculate campus. We ran. We did our drills. We scrimmaged. We prepared.

  Chris Woods fired volleys at me with increasing intensity.

  Brazil was getting closer every day.

  I grew a beard during training.

  I’d had a beard just one other time—in the six-month period from January to August 2013. I’d loved it for a while. Sometimes it even felt like a secret source of strength.

  Then one night, just before an Arsenal game, I decided to shave it off. It had nothing to do with Arsenal. There was something about the way my face felt that day. When I got to the stadium, though, my clean shave gave me the same sensation I have if Leon Osman and I don’t bump shoulders when we shake hands. It felt . . . wrong. I tormented poor Jimmy Martin that day, making him give me probably half a dozen pairs of identical white socks until I found the pair that made up for the absence of facial hair.

  Now, during training, the beard felt right again. “Nice scruff,” Landon joked as it grew in. I had no idea just how much this beard would come to represent me—no clue that this beard would soon have a life of its own, including its own Twitter account, or that the president of the United States would suggest I shave it off.

  A few weeks into training, Landon walked into the locker room.

  I could tell immediately that something was wrong. Landon always had a loose-limbed gait, but now his steps were precise, almost rigid. It seemed unfathomable, yet I knew: Landon wasn’t going to the World Cup.

  I remembered seeing him when he scored his first professional goal against me in 2001. We’d grown up together, as players, and as men. I’d watched him handle the pressure of being a young prodigy, then a full-blown superstar. We’d been together when we beat Mexico in 2007 in the G
old Cup. We’d been together when we beat Mexico on their soil. We’d been together when we beat Spain in the Confederations Cup. We’d been together in South Africa, at Everton. We’d traveled the globe together, experienced wild highs and deep lows. Now he was going, and I was staying.

  He said three words to the team.

  “I’m going home.”

  Some of the guys spoke to him. They told him how sorry they were, told him that they couldn’t believe it.

  I didn’t say a word.

  No matter what I might have said, or how heartfelt my sentiments were, words themselves would have rung hollow. Besides, Landon knew exactly how I felt about him.

  The media created a firestorm around Landon’s having been cut. That story was dragged out for weeks and beaten to a pulp. And while I know that kind of thing keeps people watching SportsCenter, I kept thinking, Cripes, leave the guy alone.

  More than that, I wanted to remind all those pundits that six other guys had been dropped, some of whom had tears in their eyes. Their dreams had been cut short, too. Yet there was barely a mention of them in any blog or newspaper story. Where were the articles about Brad Evans, or Maurice Edu, or Clarence Goodson, or Michael Parkhurst, or Joe Corona, or Terrence Boyd? Every single one of those guys had bled for this team. They’d sacrificed huge parts of their lives for a memory they wouldn’t have.

  I kept my mouth shut about it all. Here’s why: Jürgen gets paid to make big, tough, hard decisions. I get paid to put myself in front of a ball. I get paid to organize a defense. I get paid to stand in that goal, scan the field, and anticipate danger.

  But my opinion about the roster? That counts for nothing.

  Jürgen felt that he had 23 players who would best suit this team in this World Cup. Frankly, at 35 years old, I was glad to be a part of it.

  Only few of us had a lot of experience—DaMarcus and Clint had more than 100 caps. Michael Bradley and I had nearly the same number. But many on the team were basically rookies—Julian Green, who’d grown up in Germany, was still a teenager, and had only three caps. John Brooks, another young American raised in Germany, had five.