As a fan, any fan, of anything feels stress. watching world cup down hill or super g skiing causes stress if you are a fan. Beach volleyball causes stress no matter how small the bikini if you are a fan... so since we are all fans of soccer and the US team, there are no end of opportunities to causes stress. We have the WC, WC qualifiers, gold cup, and then we follow our heros in the EPL, Bund, and MLS... well let me tell ya, I have kinda "taken a break" because I have struggled with our team the last 6 months or so. There has been something missing (besides brian Mcbride) and I was wondering why i would want some separation and why I was not as engaged as I was the lat 10+ years... but I figured it out. its Tim Howard. I love that mother EFFer I have since he was at the metrostars, I hold him up as what US soccer represents... but I think I also realized recently that I celebrate his potential more than his results. I KNOW I loved Friedel, because he was a stud and got results, but even while brad was making insane saves, I was coveting this young stud keeper that we all knew would be our future. Because we as americans focus more on the future than the present. Yup thats it, that was my realization... we are looking for the next Pele in America, not the current Claudio Reyna, while we were all coveting this kid named Donovan. and while Donovan scores we covet Dempsey's potential and blow lines of Adu, Altidore, and well Agudelo. Anyways, in my may years of supporting the US team, I have to say that Tim, my frekin god, is a problem. sure he will stop shots that most others would miss, but he he will let in goals that some MLS keepers would easily handle. so in short, I am gonna stop smoking the Howard crack. He is amazing, but he is not... consistent, he is not Brad. Brad is now my keeper for life, and Tim will have to prove to me he deserves my love. he has screwed up so many early goals...and honestly he has "made it up" many times, but I feel like our field players are better than 10 years ago but our results clearly act. anyhoo, rant over
Howard is the problem? You are right....you are smoking crack. Howard may have let in a handful of goals say the last four years that should have been stopped. There have been individual games in that time period where he has made a handful of unbelievable saves. Every GK, even Freidel, allows goals in that could have been stopped if reacted differently.
There have been individual games in that time period where he has made a handful of unbelievable saves.
tim howard is a great goal keeper.no matter how good the keeper,there will be times when they let in even the simplest of goals,because they're human.If you need reassurance of how good howard is,check out his highlights in the gold cup match vs canada
tim howard is amazing for us. saves our ass seemingly every game. I love him. But there's a reason he's at Everton. He doesn't do so well in huge games. Or at least, he's not up to his usual high standard. Still, it's crazy to blame him for losses, but see The Gold Cup final. See The world cup versus Ghana. There's no one better in our realistic pool right now. But he's not world class.
I can understand where you're coming from, Voice of Reason, as every player has their strengths and weaknesses. It's easy to get frustrated with a player, especially with a goalie, who are under the highest of scrutiny over the little of things. Howard is by far USA's best option at goalie and obviously him and his coaching staff know more about defending the goalmouth than all of BigSoccer combined. That said, his approach is incredibly chaotic and can become out of control sometimes (Dos Santos' Gold Cup goal highlighted Howard's approach to playing goalie, although I don't blame him for the goal). It works for him more times than not because he's really harnessed it and that's probably why it's so exciting to watch him. I'm putting myself on a limb here when I say that I think his one-on-one approach is his weakest part of his game. He seems to rely on his feet too much and ends up getting in too wide of a stance to break out of sometimes. The picture on the right is an example of what I'm talking about: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...iters/peter_king/06/13/wc.thoughts/index.html It's a bit of a trade off in what he's doing. He makes himself wide in his stance, which is hard to get around, but makes it tough on himself on getting down and wide with his arms and hands. There's a misconception that a goal that skips past a goalie's ankle or really any ground shot is viewed as a easy save, which I think is the majority of Howard's goals on him, although this is an unfounded claim I'm making off of mental recalling and assuming a bit. It's extremely hard to get your body to the ground and extend to the lower 90. Clearly Howard's on-the-field efforts are a huge contribution but being the veteran, observer, and commander of the back line go unnoticed. Again, to recap, Howard is great and I am love having him on the field but I can understand where you're coming from.