Tim Howard appreciation thread
What a game today and solid performances against Ghana, Portugal (almost a win), and Germany (which scored 4 on Portugal).
His 12 saves in regulation time today were the most of any keeper in Brazil so far, and second most at any World Cup in the past 50 years.
If that was the 12-year veteran's final game for his country, he went out in fitting fashion: even though his team lost, Howard was named man of the match.
So put on your oversized gloves and give the man a round of applause!
from wondo on that finish.
oh well
What makes you guys think Howard is done? I think he's stil elite and has a very good chance of being elite 4 years from now. I wouldn't shut the door on that...
tend to have better longevity than field players. If his instincts and reaction time remain good there's no reason to think he can't be a part of USA team set up for 2018.
It is more likely that he walks away, given that A) he is 35, and the travel is a killer from England to team USA games B) he's been doing broadcasting on days he doesn't play, which signals to me he sees a life beyond the game and I wouldn't doubt is targeting 2018 as a chance to broadcast World Cup games.
Brad Friedel was still the regular goalie for Tottenham at age 40, and still the backup last year at age 42.
Exactly. The guy plays a position where he doesn't have to go more than a few feet in any direction. I see him suiting up and the MVP of the 2026 World Cup.
"WTF no I don't."
especially since he's a goalie and not running for 120 minutes straight.
Not just the best goalie, but the best-ever soccer player, period, for the United States.
to be a top 20 and maybe even top 15/10 player at that position in the world is very unlikely.
I'm not comparing him to players from other countries. I'm saying he's the best U.S. soccer player ever. I don't know whom you'd rank ahead of him. Donovan? Lalas? Howard is the first truly world-class player America has produced.
an individual put forth such a heroic effort and not get rewarded for it. Yet he was a class act and represented himself and this country in the perfect manner. Tim Howard is a great athlete, a great person and I hope he's got one more World Cup in him.
keeper is probably the most important position, and it showed today, as a great performance was almost enough to see us through despite a very disappointing team effort.
He represented his country well, never had a bad thing to say about the guys playing in front of him, and has done a lot with his foundation to raise awareness and assistance for Tourettes (which he struggled with since he was a kid)
He's quite literally the only reason we didn't lose 4-0 in regulation. Incredible performance
what portion of howard's performance should be chalked up to usa's defense being bad (and giving up a mind boggling number of scoring chances) and belgium's finishing being bad (and allowing for very saveable shots)?
Howard played great. One of the best individual performances I've ever seen. I was really hoping for the win because he deserved it, if only Wondo didn't choke. Should have just tapped it to Dempsey.
Also, watching the replay of the first goal in extra time, Besler gets burned twice. That goal is definitely on him, which is too bad because overall I thought he had a good tourney.
I wish he would've buried it and we would've won, but he's personally never going to forget that one. It'll likely haunt him the rest of his life
That's what sucks about being a defender in soccer, much like a corner in football. You get burned once and that is all they talk about even if 99% of the plays you made. Besler was very good all tourney and got beat by a world class player who not only made excellent moves, showed great patience, but delivered an unstoppable shot. He got twisted like a pretzel - it happens to the best defenders in the world.
Goal is never created if defender on sideline did not slip (I think it was Beasley - could be wrong). That's just bad fortune.
Besler relative to expectations coming into the tournament stood on his head. Other than Jermaine Jones and Tim Howard I could not name a player who did better at his position over 4 games.
The defender who slipped was Besler. But he didn't slip so much as get boxed out at full speed, bouncing off the fresh-legged 6'3" Lukaku. Great hustle to recover before he appeared to get overzealous losing contain to De Bruyne's right foot. I agree that's forgiveable, especially since Besler was solid throughout.
Wondo's miss in the 91st is the bitter pill. That was our chance to steal it for Howard.
he ran up behind Lukaku and tried to muscle the ball out, fell down and Lukaku stayed up with a free run to the goal.
Besler; managed to catch him but then overplayed the next guy and gave up the angle.
wasn't he flagged by the assistant ref anyway (errroneously)? He blew it, but it would have been disallowed anyway I thought.
If we're talking about the one in regulation anyway, the one in extra time he had no real way to do anything with.
The announcer corrected himself and proposed the assistant ref was just raising his flag for the goal kick rather than offsides. In the live action he announced it was waved offsides but after about a minute of analysis he corrected his statement. (Note: just going off what I heard on the broadcast, I'm not an expert)
Howard's amazing performance is covering up for how awful the US played.
How everybody is excited about a 1-2-1 performance is beyond me (yeah, yeah, tough seeding, injuries... Tell it to RR).
but it's far better than anyone outside the US expected of us and showed tremdendous progress from where the national team has been; they showed true possibilities for upcoming tournaments like the Gold Cup next year, Olympics in 2016 and Confederation Cup in 2017 before 2018 World Cup.
We took on 2 of the top 4 teams in the world, and Belgium despite being only #11 was the 5th favorite to win the World Cup and hasn't lost. We weren't supposed to even compete with teams like that really. We outplayed Portugal and Christiano Ronaldo for 90 minutes, and hung in with Germany despite them playing a defensive game. Belgium has the 2nd most expensive roster after Brazil and we matched them for 120 minutes.
I'm not sure of a good analogy, but that's like Purdue suddenly going to the SEC, beating Florida, hanging with Alabama until the 4th quarter, and losing to Auburn in overtime all without their best Running Back and no real backup. Yeah it sucks they lost, but the USA wasn't supposed to get out of the group stage, wasn't supposed to even compete with Portugal, Germany or Belgium and definitely wasn't supposed to show any promise going forward but they did all of that.
played in getting our win, tie, and losses was not very promising at all. we played terrible soccer, gave up way too much possession, had terrible pass and first touch quality, and had a no show from the guy we thought was our new star. there were good performances from young players that shows promise for the future. but, end of the day, jurgen was supposed to bring a new wave of quality soccer, and this performance showed no delivery on that promise.
he was almost excellent against Belgium. Green's goal came off a fabulous ball, he played numers diagonals to the corners that hit his runners perfectly in stride. He was a tad too indecisive in the attack and should have ripped a couple shots at goal probably, but his passing and control yesterday were very good and far better than the qualifying round.
The US struggled with possession early but nearly had it equalized by the end. And the idea that Klinnsman was supposed to radically change years of American football in 2 years was fucking stupid. No one thought we would be world beaters by this Cup, even though we over achieved. He can't "bring a new wave" in a rapid time with the same players we've had and expect it to go perfectly. He has to change the culture of soccer in the country and improve our development first of all.
A coach can't take over a bad team and suddenly make them good, he has to have a few years to get his system in place. It's the same with football coaches here, it's just that with soccer player turn over isn't nearly as quick. Some of you people just want instant gratification and see anything else as failure, we'd have to beat Germany by 2 and route Belgium for you to see "delivery on that promise" probably.
We took on 2 of the top 4 teams in the world
Eh, I'd say one of the top four. Even with a healthy Ronaldo, Portugal isn't in that class, and he wasn't very healthy in this WC.
Still, it was a tough road. I'd say all four of our opponents were in the top 20.
I too think Portugal is overrated and Ghana is way underrated - I think Ghana is rated like mid 30s
Right now I'd put Germany top 5, Portugal 10-15, Ghana 10-15, and Belgium 8-10. There was no "like minded" game versus a Japan, Cameroon, Greece, etc.
The U.S. played "well" 1 game - Portgual. They did what they had to do versus Germany. They got badly outplayed vs Ghana and Belgium and were fortunate vs Ghana. That said they were unfortunate to tie Portgual.
Again this team has almost no depth. We lost our only true striker with experience in the opening half. Our best MF played anywhere from ok to bad in all 4 games. We made it out of a tough group when teams like Spain and England (who is not great) failed. We lack technical skill so we played the way we had to, and did fine relative to what we are.
We are who we thought we were and such.
is the worst team in the quarter finals?