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Home , Bob Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Frank Borghi, Joe Gaetjens, Jozy Altidore, Oguchi Onyewu

Tim Howard will be key in the long-awaited World Cup rematch against England next week. Psychologically, goalkeeping is the toughest

52 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 7, 2010

TNY—2010_06_07—PAGE 52—133SC.—Live art r19687—Critical photograph to be watched throughout the entire press run

the sporting scene national defense

Can the ’ goalkeeper produce another Miracle on Grass? BY hampton sides G etty spot on the field. Howard has Tourette’s syndrome, which he feels may help him stay alert and reactive. Photograph by Jonathan Ferrey.

TNY—2010_06_07—PAGE 53—133SC.—Live art r19687—Critical photograph to be watched throughout the entire press run n June 12th, the United States through a cluster of defenders and got his Although the Miracle on Grass was men’s national soccer team faces head on the ball, deflecting it past the surely a historical aberration, it has none- England,O in Rustenburg, South Africa, keeper and into the back of the net. theless characterized the English and in a match that is expected to draw one The English fought back, playing American teams for decades. England: of the largest audiences in the history of a menacing second half. Borghi again imperious, delusional, fragile on foreign televised sports. The last time the U.S. blocked a battery of shots, but the Amer- soil, good but rarely as good as its fanat- met England in a World Cup was sixty icans were forced to rely mainly on near- ical supporters believe. The United years ago, in June, 1950, in Belo Hori- thuggish defending and prodigious good States: brutish, defense-oriented, inured zonte, Brazil. The American team, cob- luck. They also had a “twelfth man,” in to the fact that scarcely anyone back bled together so hastily that many play- the form of the stadium crowd of thirty home gives a damn, but buoyed by the ers had just met one another, included a thousand Brazilians, who cheered for perennial hope that a big victory might dishwasher, a mail carrier, a meat packer, them rapturously—not because they usher in a Golden Age of American Soc- and a hearse driver. A reporter from Bel- loved the Americans but because they cer. If the English relationship with the fast called them a “band of no-hopers” wanted to see the English knocked out, World Cup has been one of anguish and and “surely the strangest team ever to be to better their own team’s chances. disappointment—England has won the seen at a World Cup.” No one gave the Finally, the whistle blew: the Yanks trophy only once, in 1966—the Ameri- Americans the slightest chance. Their had beaten the Kings of Football, 1–0. can record has been one of incremental coach, Bill Jeffrey, described his squad The Brazilian spectators swarmed the improvement, leading to rising expecta- before the game as “sheep ready to be team, carrying Borghi and Gaetjens tions that are never quite met. slaughtered.” off the field. “Boy, I feel sorry for these Still, American soccer sensibilities The English, then known as the bastards,” one American defender was look toward the British game—its ethos, Kings of Football, viewed the game quoted as saying. “How are they ever its personalities, even its idiom. Among as a mere demonstration. Their team, going to live down the fact we beat aficionados, a field is a “pitch.” Cleats are which Lloyds of had reportedly them?” “boots.” A scoreless game is “nil–nil.” A insured for three million dollars, was It came to be regarded as the greatest team is a “side,” and a side is plural—as filled with players from England’s well- upset in the history of World Cup soc- in “Chelsea have won the Premiership.” established domestic leagues, led by cer—the so-called Miracle on Grass— In at least this one area of endeavor, Stanley Matthews, who was widely re- and was the subject of a 1996 book by Americans are still colonials, living in garded as the best player in the world. Geoffrey Douglas, “The Game of Their thrall to the great faded empire. As if to Since the end of the Second World Lives.” The English could not quite underscore the point, ESPN, which will War, the English national team had grasp what had happened. Newspaper be televising the World Cup in the amassed a record of twenty-three victo- editors in London, certain the score that United States, has selected four com- ries, four losses, and three ties. Winning came in over the wires was a typing error, mentators to announce the games; three the World Cup was seen as a birthright. posted the result as “10–1, England.” of them are British and one is a Scot. The British had essentially invented The English lost their next match, against football, after all, when, in 1863, a group Spain, and failed to advance to the next ext week in South Africa, England of eleven clubs and schools huddled in a round. In London, the postmortem on will again field some of the best- London tavern to reconcile inconsisten- England’s disastrous performance car- knownN footballers in the world, like cies in local versions of the game. In ried a hint of comic desperation: British , , and 1950, most bookies had the English a constitutions don’t fare well in the trop- . Its star striker, a fleet Caliban three-to-one favorite to win the whole ics; the long airplane trip was too stress- named , is among the tournament. ful; the U.S. team had been recruited two or three most dazzling attackers In , the Yanks (as the right off the boats at Ellis Island. playing today. The team manager, a deb- U.S. team is called) were outmatched The Americans, who also failed to onair Italian named , is re- at every position. The English passed advance, came home to silence. Few of portedly the highest-paid coach at this crisply and maintained a bombardment their countrymen even noticed that they year’s World Cup, and for good reason. worthy of the Great War. The American had pulled off a shocking upset, and the In the qualification route to South Af- goalkeeper, an Italian-American from victory did nothing to excite soccer’s rica, his team earned nine victories in St. Louis named , hurled popularity in the United States. The ten games, scoring thirty-four goals. En­ himself from one side of the goalmouth U.S. men’s national team did not make gland is eighth in the world standings, but to the other. Though the English strik- an appearance in a World Cup for forty for the first time in a long while the En­ ers hit the crossbar or the post several years, and didn’t win another World glish are justified in believing that their times in the first half, nothing went in. Cup match until 1994. But the game in team—proudly called the — Then, in the thirty-seventh minute, 1950 remained an emblem of hope for a has a chance to win the Cup. The eupho- the American midfielder succession of mediocre squads. “Some- ria is captured in a song that’s being sung, struck a long ball toward the far post, a times the better team loses,” Walter only half facetiously, around Britain these lofting, quixotic shot that appeared to be Bahr, now eighty-three, told a reporter days: “Football’s Coming Home!” a routine save for the English goalkeeper. recently. “You can’t pick the winner be- The World Cup is by far the largest But a forward named dove forehand—you have to play the game.” athletic event on the planet. More than

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TNY—2010_06_07—PAGE 54—133SC.54—133SC.—Page #2 Text change a billion people are expected to watch this year’s tournament via live television, and events will be held at ten venues across South Africa, from Cape Town and Durban to . Between June 11th and July 11th, thirty-two teams from every part of the globe will play a total of sixty-four games. Vice- President Biden will attend the open- ing ceremonies and the U.S.-England game. Among a host of security and lo- gistical worries, Al Qaeda has vowed to have “a presence” at the tournament. Because the World Cup has never been held in Africa before, it is a source of considerable pride across the continent. “I thought we agreed­—no moms!” Three hundred thousand visitors are ex- pected throughout the month, straining •• South Africa’s infrastructure and bring- ing in millions of tourist dollars. English and American fans are ex- starts for Everton in the English Premier coached at Princeton before moving to pected to descend on South Africa in League, will be under enormous pressure , was putting the unprecedented numbers. (After En- in Rustenburg. Luckily for the Ameri- team through its paces. Bradley, a severe gland, the U.S. goes on to play what are cans, he is in the prime of his career, and man with a buzz cut, is built along the generally viewed as weaker opponents— is generally thought to be one of the best lines of an American football coach: a Slovenia on June 18th, and Algeria on goalkeepers in the world. steady, hardworking, but personality- June 23rd.) Ranked fourteenth in the free drill sergeant whose analysis of world, the Americans are physically im- n Amsterdam a couple of months plays is smattered with terms like “sys- pressive and well-prepared. In recent ago, Howard was practicing with the tems” and “work rates.” Across the field, years, they have beaten Spain and tied IU.S. team in preparation for a friendly the players were whooping and shout- Argentina. But in next weekend’s contest, match against Holland, set to be played ing, happy to be sprung from their pro- at Rustenburg’s Royal Bafokeng Sta- in a few days at the Amsterdam Arena. fessional clubs and reunited with their dium, they are certainly the lesser team, The U.S. coaching staff had scheduled countrymen. and would regard a tie as an emphatically a series of tune-up games against élite Bradley’s practice concluded with an good result. The American blueprint international teams, and the match intense shooting drill, in which waves of against England may closely resemble the against Holland, ranked fourth in the attackers fired balls at Howard. Even in one used in Belo Horizonte sixty years world, was an opportunity to test new practice, he is a commanding presence. ago: concede most of the possession, players and strategies. The practice There is an almost operatic quality in his hope to get lucky on a furious counterat- field, in a cloistered neighborhood not facial expressions and bodily contortions; tack, hunker down to defend against the far from the city center, was bordered by he has mastered what keepers call “mak- inevitable onslaught—and pray that the a pathway coursing with bicyclists. ing yourself big.” He executed his dives American goalkeeper, like Frank Borghi, Nearly all the American starters were and punches with a hint of flamboyance, can bring off a miracle. there, immersed in drills: Landon Don- as though to telegraph confidence to any For more than a decade, a succession ovan, an attacking midfielder from the doubters who might be watching. of American-born keepers have com- Los Angeles Galaxy, who is perhaps the Afterward, Howard strolled off the peted well on teams throughout the greatest player the United States has field, sweaty, smiling, and joking with world—goalkeepers have been the ever produced; , a strap- teammates. Genial and self-deprecating, United States’ one reliable soccer export. ping Haitian-American who scored a he speaks softly, in a ac- The reasons for this have been widely de- glorious goal against Spain last summer; cent that has been slightly diluted by bated, but they share a central proposi- and , the team’s central seven years of playing in the U.K., first tion: American athletes know how to use defender and celebrated “hard man,” in Manchester and then in Liverpool. their hands. (“Ever seen an Englishman who, though recovering from a torn pa- The son of a Hungarian mother and try to throw a ball? It’s worse than ‘throw- tellar tendon, had travelled to Amster- an African-American father, Howard ing like a girl,’ ” , who played dam from his home, in Milan, for light is a rangy, ochre-skinned man standing in goal for the U.S. national team in two training. (, the crafty six feet three and weighing a hundred World Cups, says.) By all accounts, the American attacking midfielder, who and ninety pounds. His head is shaved U.S. team’s current keeper, a thirty-one- plays for Fulham, had stayed in En­ to a sheen, and a vein protrudes at his year-old named , will be a gland to nurse a knee injury.) temple. linchpin in South Africa. Howard, who The head coach, , who We met afterward at the team hotel

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TNY—2010_06_07—PAGE 55—133SC.—live art a15054 downtown, on the banks of a canal. Stars to become Manchester United’s sion, sometimes intensified by certain Wearing a U.S. team warmup suit and goalkeeper, the British tabloids said that kinds of sensory overload—a not implau- sandals, he sipped a cappuccino in the he was “handicapped,” even “retarded.” sible description of the state of mind hotel restaurant. Outside, a pair of Ger- The spontaneous outbursts and invol- required for competitive goalkeeping. man autograph stalkers, hoping to gather untary utterances that affect a minority “In goal, you’re taking in all the signatures from the entire squad, had to of people with Tourette’s are not among movement, all the runs,” Howard said. be marched from the premises. Howard Howard’s symptoms, but fans in Man- “You see everything. You’re yelling. laughed. Around Liverpool, he is a major chester nonetheless devised a curse- You’re tense. You’re so wired-in. To tell star, pursued by fans and photographers. laden chant that became a mainstay you the truth, I don’t enjoy the game— For the past three years, he has played for whenever he made a good save: “Tim- I’ve never actually had fun within the Everton—the Toffees, one of the oldest timminy, tim-timminy, tim-tim, te- course of those ninety minutes.” Because and most hidebound clubs in England— roo, We’ve got Tim Howard and he the object is always a shutout—a “clean and recently signed a five-year contract says, FUCK YOU!” sheet,” as the British call it—he can that makes him the highest-paid Amer- Howard, the father of two children never relax. “As long as there’s time on ican soccer player in history. and a devout Christian, is not particu- the clock, there’s still danger,” he says. Another singular thing about How- larly known for his temper, but he “When the whistle blows, I’m com- ard: he has Tourette’s syndrome, a disor- can sometimes lose it on the field. In pletely exhausted, physically and men- der of the nervous system that manifests a clip on YouTube titled “Everton’s tally. I get in the locker room and I sit itself in facial jerks, spasms, and involun- Tim Howard Goes Mental,” he chases down and I just exhale. Finally, the dan- tary . The intense focus he is required down a player from the Wolverhampton ger is over.” to summon in games moderates his Wanderers who obstructed him, grabs symptoms, and often cancels them alto- the back of his head, and shoves him to gainst Holland a few nights later, gether. (When the ball is safely away the ground. Howard says it’s possible Howard had a standout perfor- from the goal, his tics will sometimes that Tourette’s actually helps him in Amance. Although it was only a friendly emerge.) But in conversation he repeat- goal, that it makes him more alert and match, the fifty-one-thousand-seat Am- edly clears his throat, blinks, and stam- reactive. “Some people with Tourette’s sterdam Arena was nearly sold out, the mers; his neck tightens and his cheeks syndrome seem to have an unusual so- stands packed with fans wearing bril- twitch. He refuses to take medication for matic empathy,” Dr. James Leckman, of liant orange, the team color. The Dutch fear that it will make him “zombielike” Yale, who has published widely about crowd followed every nuance of the ac- and impair his motor skills. “I’m very the syndrome, says. “They tell me that tion with rapt attention. In the Nether- adrenaline-filled, and I wouldn’t want to they sense things in the body move- lands, one senses, soccer is not so much suppress that,” he told me. “I like the way ments of others that the rest of us screen a sport as a national science project. I am. If I woke up tomorrow without out, some signal or vibration, some Through most of the match, the Dutch Tourette’s, I wouldn’t know what to do sensory cue. It’s almost like they can see team was obviously superior in skills and with myself.” what’s going to happen before it hap- tactics. Against such teams, Bob Bradley When, in 2003, he was hired away pens.” Tourette’s is characterized by a plays a game that is bruising and reac- from the New York/New Jersey Metro- buildup of anxiety and neurological ten- tive—“ugly soccer,” some have called it. In lieu of finesse, he relies on his players’ size, speed, and toughness, and trusts his goalkeeper to organize a tight, hunkered- down defense. Defensive soccer is not by definition unglamorous. The Italians, in the sixties, mastered something they called the cate- naccio—the door bolt. The Americans are neither as sly nor as grandiose as the Italians, but Bradley has adapted a page from their playbook. The idea is to stay compact and lure the stronger team for- ward so that its players leave themselves vulnerable to a high-speed counterattack. Last June, at the FIFA Confederations Cup tournament, in South Africa, Brad- ley employed this strategy to upset top- ranked Spain, a team that had not lost a game in thirty-five consecutive outings. The Dutch won, 2–1, but Howard was thrilling and exhausting to watch: smothering balls, swatting them away,

TNY—2010_06_07—PAGE 56—133SC.—live art—a 15060 lurching and leaping. He is an instinc- his Hungarian grandfather introduced and yang to things,” she says. “If you have tive shot-stopper, whose pure reflexes him to soccer. Esther, a manager for a a disorder like this, then you also have a and athleticism allow him to make cosmetics distributor, knew early on that gift that you’ve been given and you just saves that seem impossible. Some have something was different about Tim. “He try to learn what it is. Soccer was his gift. argued that those astonishing recover- was my high-maintenance child,” she re- It provided an escape from Tourette’s— ies would often be unnecessary if he calls. “He would fill up a room with his it absorbed that energy.” were more meticulous in his footwork energy. He never slept through the night. Howard caught the attention of the and field positioning. But few keepers Something was always going.” U.S. Soccer youth program, and in high in international soccer can match his Although Howard’s parents divorced school he travelled around the country raw reactions or his acrobatic saves. when he was three, his father, a long- attending showcase tournaments and Even during lulls, he was in motion— haul truck driver, played a élite clinics; he calls his teens kicking the goalposts to clean the sod part in his upbringing. When “my nomadic years.” Tim from his cleats, tugging at his socks, Howard’s parents put him in Mulqueen, who is the goal- touching and retouching the mesh of Little League, he hated it. “It keeping coach for the U.S. the net. He seems to find comfort in just wasn’t fast enough,” Es- national youth team, met tactile repetition, and in reminding ther recalls. “He was bored Howard when he was twelve, himself, to millimetre tolerances, ex- stiff out there.” But soccer and was astonished by his actly where he is. attracted him—its fluidity, ability. “Athletically, Timmy Howard, who describes himself as a its feints and deceits, its intri- was off the charts,” Mul- “yeller,” is a loud and demonstrative field cate movements in a simple queen told me. “He had marshal. He barks commands at his de- frame­work. He was a field player at first, all the attributes: the vertical leap, the fenders—adjusting their position, orga- but soon found himself in goal, mainly hand-eye coördination, the aggressive- nizing a wall to fend off a direct kick, or because he was taller than his teammates. ness, the competitiveness, the physical expressing displeasure with the way a His spot in the net helped him learn to presence. When he came on the field, striker is being guarded. The stream of grasp patterns and to see potential plays. you knew he was there.” signals is nearly constant—in this sense “He had an ability to see the game un- In high school, Howard also played he is like a catcher in baseball, or a cox- fold in front of him,” Esther says, “and to basketball, as a forward, and in his senior swain in a scull—and his defenders are anticipate what would happen next.” year the team made the state finals. He alert to his cues. “A keeper’s got to have a Psychologically, goalkeeping is the thought about playing professionally certain bravado,” Howard says. “You toughest spot on the field. It requires re- (he was recently made an honorary mem- have to connect with the players, you silience and a short memory, as well as a ber of the ), and have to have a chemistry. You need to somewhat Manichean view of the world. though he became convinced that he had show your distaste for things that are “In goal, they’re trying to get the ball past better prospects as a soccer player, his happening, as they’re happening. You you; you’re trying to stop it,” Howard time on the courts informed his game. can’t be a stiff in there.” says. “Anything else is just meaningless. “With goalkeeping, as in basketball, And, when you screw up, it’s gone, it’s there’s no slow movements,” Howard oalkeepers are the oddballs of soc- finished. You can’t get it back.” says. “Everything is carried out on a very cer. They wear neon colors, sport When he started playing in goal, the small area of play, with sharp move- aggressiveG hairdos, and affect strutting demands of the position sometimes got ments, tight cuts, quick jumps. I definitely postures. Italy’s great keeper Gianluigi the better of him. “When I was maybe think the two went hand in hand.” Buffon is an actor of the first order, with nine,” Howard recalls, “I remember cry- Howard went semi-pro in 1997, join- a camera-loving face that bluffs, sulks, ing and being so upset, and my mom ing the New Jersey Imperials. A year bullies, and mocks. The German Oliver would walk down the sideline and just later, at eighteen, he moved to the Metro­ Kahn, now retired, had the aspect of a tell me it was all right. There’s some days Stars, where he eventually became the pillaging Teutonic warrior, and seemed now, in stadiums filled with fifty thou- highest-paid goalkeeper in Major League to relish his own shock effect. sand people, where I could still use her.” Soccer, earning more than two hundred Howard, though he greatly admires The facial tics started when he was thousand dollars a year. In 2002, he was Kahn and Buffon, is not an eccentric. around ten. In addition to experiencing courted by Sir , the man- Growing up with Tourette’s made him jerks and blinks, he grew extremely anx- ager of Manchester United, perhaps the unusual enough, and as a teen-ager he ious in unfamiliar situations, and began most successful football franchise in was always worrying about what people to show obsessive-compulsive behaviors, the world. United reportedly paid a $4.1- said behind his back. He strove most of repeatedly straightening, counting, and million transfer fee, and in 2003, at his life to fit in—and, he says, to keep his touching things—gaps in the floorboards, twenty-four, Howard was starting in the itchy impulses “at bay.” or bricks in the wall. “A certain pattern team’s Old Trafford Stadium, the so- Howard was born in 1979 and grew had to be followed, an exact routine,” Es- called Theatre of Dreams. “It’s a fantasy up in a lower-middle-class family in ther recalls. “He had to put his clothes on really to even think you’ll play here,” he North Brunswick, New Jersey, about the same way every day.” Howard was said, shortly after he arrived. “It’s the best forty miles south of New York. His eleven when a doctor made a definitive club in the world without a doubt.” mother, Esther, was from Budapest, and diagnosis. “I believe there’s a certain yin Howard’s rookie season was trium-

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TNY—2010_06_07—PAGE 57—133SC.57—133SC.—Live spot art r19685a—Please inspect and report on quality phant. With fourteen clean sheets, which plays in a creaky old stadium fine-boned man with smoldering eyes he was named the English Premier called Goodison Park, in Liverpool. and a scallop of receding black hair. He League’s Goalkeeper of the Year, and “Coming to Everton from Manchester is a specimen of human endurance, able helped lead Manchester to its first United was definitely a downgrade for to run a full ninety minutes at near-top Football Association Cup in five years. Tim,” Roger Bennett, an English soccer speed. On counterattacks, his open-field He got married, and bought a house in journalist and lifelong Everton sup- sprints can be glorious. More than that, Manchester. Ferguson boasted that in porter, says. Although soccer is as deeply he possesses an ability to create plays his experiment with Howard he’d made rooted in Liverpool as music, Bennett seemingly from nothing. His problem a sort of anthropological discovery says, “Everton was a middling team has been emotional inconsistency. He’s about the promise of American foot- running on the fumes of past glory, and prone to streaks of brilliance but, like ballers. The Americans “are an athletic, when Tim arrived it was just beginning many great attackers, he can be finicky agile race,” he said. “You see the spring to emerge from many dark years of tur- and easily offended. Three disappointing Tim’s got. A lot of them play basket- gid soccer.” stints in Germany earlier in his career ball, which possibly helps. And they The team’s manager, a Scotsman suggested that, for all his strengths, he don’t believe they can lose—that’s their named , had a reputation couldn’t make it abroad. upbringing.” for salvaging careers. Under Moyes, Donovan’s success with Everton qui- The next season, Howard made sev- Howard found his rhythm again. He has eted many of his critics. Still, when he is eral high-profile blunders—most nota- been at Everton since then, and is widely uninspired, he can seem oddly distracted bly against Porto, in the second round credited for helping to reverse the team’s on the field. In a match for Everton of the Champions League tournament. fortunes. In 2008-09, Howard broke the against Tottenham Hotspur in late Feb- In the ninetieth minute of the game, he club record for the highest number of ruary, he shanked a laughably easy shot parried a shot into the path of an on- clean sheets, with sixteen. Bennett says, right in front of the goalmouth, in what rushing striker; the resulting goal elim- “For many weaker individuals, what Tim the British football press pronounced inated Manchester United from the went through at Manchester would have “the miss of the season.” Donovan was tournament and cost the club an esti- finished them off. But he’s had a Second so embarrassed that he apologized to his mated eighteen million dollars in reve- Coming at Everton. He’s beloved. His whole team. The next game, he played nue. Howard was summarily benched. confidence is back, and his game is im- brilliantly. The British papers wrote that he was proving every day.” “You never know which Donovan “under scrutiny,” and “way off the stan- will show up,” David Hirshey, a soccer dard.” They said that his Tourette’s had his past season, Everton briefly journalist and editor, says. “Landon’s got worse and that he was travelling to made room for another American got all the technical ability, but his mer- the United States to consult with spe- Tstar: the attacking midfielder Landon curial personality often gets in the way. cialists. The Daily Record predicted Donovan, Tim Howard’s friend and He’s frustrated that the other American “Howard’s End.” U.S.A. teammate. Donovan spent ten players aren’t on his level. He’ll make a “It was brutal,” Howard recalled. “It weeks in Liverpool in the late winter and beautiful, telepathic pass, then throw up seemed like they wanted to see my early spring, and Everton fans, thrilled by his hands in exasperation when the downfall. At Man U, there’s no room for his mad runs down the flanks, would other player isn’t there to receive it. But error. It’s a cutthroat, fickle business. often chant “U-S-A!” With Donovan at Donovan’s the one American who can They want results, and they want them right wing and Howard in goal, Everton pull off a pure act of improvisation.” now.” Esther Howard, visiting her son became an oddly Americanized team— , a former World Cup de- in Manchester, was astonished by how and a successful one. It moved up four fender for the United States who is now quickly his fortunes had soured. “In spots in the Premiership, upsetting Chel- an on-air commentator for ESPN, England, the goalkeeper is treated like a sea and Manchester. After Donovan’s agrees. “Donovan’s a world-class player— necessary evil,” she says. “It’s a totally final Everton game, in March, in which maybe our only one, other than Tim thankless position. One mistake, and he got a goal and an assist, he was hoisted Howard and Clint Dempsey. When his you’ve gone from being a hero to being by a teammate, and a slightly varied cheer mood ring turns the right color, he brings a bum.” went up in the crowd: “U-S-A! You out something no other American can.” Howard had a little more playing must stay!” One such moment came last year in time in 2004, but “he began to overana- If Howard leads the U.S. team’s de- Johannesburg, in the Confederations lyze himself,” says. “He fense, then Donovan is the engine who Cup final, against Brazil. In the twenty- became cautious and conservative, in will drive its attack. A nerveless and sixth minute, Brazil had pushed nearly its order not to make errors. He played the clinical finisher, Donovan is the U.S.A.’s entire team toward the American goal way he thought they wanted him to all-time leading scorer, with forty-two for a corner kick. A few seconds later, a play.” In June of 2005, when Ferguson international goals. He is also the most U.S. defender got possession and passed signed , the Dutch na- experienced man on the U.S.A. roster, to Donovan, who was left alone in mid­ tional goalkeeper, Howard understood having played in the last two World field with only two Brazilian defenders that his time was up at Manchester Cups, and made more than a hundred between him and the goal. Instantly ex- United. and twenty international appearances. ploiting the huge gap, Donovan angled In 2006, he was loaned to Everton, Donovan, a native Californian, is a the ball deep along the left flank, reach-

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TNY—2010_06_07—PAGE 58—133SC.58—133SC.‚ ing the winger , who passed it back to Donovan, by now sprint- ing toward the top of Brazil’s penalty box. Donovan coolly outmaneuvered his de- fender and drilled the ball past the Bra- zilian goalkeeper. The goal was a stunning illustration of how, in one swift moment, a tightly drawn defense can transform into a de- cisive counterattack. With three passes, the Americans covered eighty yards in less than ten seconds. Though the Bra- zilians won the game, the play has be- come a canonical moment in U.S. soc- cer history. Donovan, it seemed, had seen it all before it happened. “By the time we got there, all we wanted to do was raid their kitchen.” n next weekend’s game against En­ gland, the United States faces a na- •• tionI in an almost desperate state of ex­pectancy. England knows that it is formidable this year, but beneath that team hotel will be alcohol-free, and the gles, his feints. “Rooney’s phenome- confidence is a sinking sense that the players will be limited to precisely one nal,” Howard says. “Very unpredictable. team will, as usual, find a way to leave conjugal visit between games. (This last He’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve. the tournament early. Time and again stricture was a response to the 2006 You have to pick your poison with a in the World Cup, the English have World Cup, in Germany, during which player like that.” been stopped by dumb luck, rash mis- the frenzied shopping and night-club- Yet Howard insists that he is not in takes, and faulty penalty shooting. They bing of and other ce- awe of anyone on the English team. He’s are usually dispatched by their archri- lebrity WAGS—“wives and girlfriends”— been playing with and against them for vals, Germany and Argentina. was a major distraction.) seven years, and is the only American England’s main problem, many crit- Capello’s biggest vexation, though, who could conceivably start for the Three ics have argued, is a deeply embedded has been injuries; up and down his Lions. Though he would be happy with mixture of arrogance and ignorance. roster are hobbling sprains, fractures, a tie, a reprise of the 1950 upset is not im- The soccer commentator Paul Gardner, and hamstring pulls. In March, David possible. “I’ve been dreaming of this, an Englishman who has lived in the Beckham ruptured an Achilles tendon working toward this, my entire life,” United States for decades, says, “The while playing for A.C. Milan, eliminat- Howard says. “It’s a huge game for us— English tend to be snotty about other ing the aging star from his fourth World the whole world will be watching. But we soccer cultures, especially America. Cup. A greater concern is the twenty- have nothing to fear.” They think they’re supposed to be top four-year-old Wayne Rooney, who The Americans are not deaf to the dogs at this, and will not accept that plays for Manchester United and is at echoes of history: the U.S. team’s new there could be something interesting the center of the national team’s offense. uniform, made by Nike, is styled after coming out of the United States. The In May, during his final United game the 1950 jersey, with a vintage sash across feeling is, if they didn’t think of it, it of the season, Rooney limped off the the front. The tribute pleases Frank can’t be any good.” field, kneading his upper thigh and Borghi, the 1950 keeper, who still lives Still, after failing to qualify for the wincing. As the games in South Africa in St. Louis, having retired from running 2008 European Championships, the grow closer, the British have held a a funeral parlor. When I spoke with him English hired the Italian Fabio Capello national vigil on the fragile state of recently, he said that he would be closely to lead them in the World Cup. He has Rooney’s groin. One business newswire watching the World Cup match against described his role as that of a “ghost- fretted that on these tender muscles England, rooting for Tim Howard and buster,” exorcising the U.K.’s World rests “the future of England’s dwindling the Americans. Cup demons. Capello is an urbane man, pub industry.” Rooney, though, has in- I asked him what he remembered a lover of and art—his collection sisted to reporters that “the groin will be about the game in Belo Horizonte. Borghi of Kandinskys, Chagalls, and other fine for the World Cup,” and he played was modest. “They outplayed us,” he significant works is said to be worth the full ninety minutes in a recent game said. “I was just lucky enough to make about ten million pounds. He is also a with . a few saves.”  stern disciplinarian who has expressed A healthy Rooney is the player the admiration for Francisco Franco. In Americans fear most. Howard has im-­ newyorker.com/video South Africa, Capello announced, cell mersed himself in videos, studying phones will be banned at meals, the Rooney’s tendencies, his runs, his an- Highlights from Tim Howard’s career.

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