Tim has always been excellent for the Nats, except, typically, for one bone-headed moment per game. He and his teammates have gotten better, so those moments have decreased, leaving a very good CB. I was surprised and happy Gregg kept playing him, but was still kind of waiting for an old school Tim Ream moment, but the closest we got was him failing to poke that scramble in front of NED’s goal home. Thanks to Tim for a great WC.
Love Tim, glad he played so well this tournament and by all accounts he is a great guy to have around a young team. Mark McKenzie reminds me a lot of Tim when he was younger. Smooth, really cultured breaking lines, high iq, good for 1-2 horrific errors a game. Hopefully it doesn't take Mark until his mid 30s to figure it out though. I hope Tim goes into coaching after his career is over, think he could really successful.
I'm really stoked he closed out his Nats career on top of his game...such a feel good. I'm so impressed that he always challenged himself by staying in England to continue to develop his game... instead of taking the easy path back to MLS .He added more grit and years of high quality experience. The WC performance we saw was the culmination of his determination to always push to a higher level. He will be remembered very well.
I don't know if this is always the case, but Ream is one good data point. Miazga would be a better version of Ream really. But not quite able to make the big time maybe, but work hard, be a good soldier, and improve your game in EU vs. nope it's hard, come back to MLS. We'll see what happens with Miazga.
Very happy for him that he finally got this opportunity late in his career. Sort of wonder how long he can keep this run going. His game was never built on athleticism so maybe he can play for a few years longer still. Crazy that his game is peaking at 35. He wasn’t the same player the last time Fulham went up.
Ream also had a ton more stability. Miazga had a new club each year being part of the loan army. Hard to compare situations I feel like.
True. But if Miazga really wanted to stick it out in EU, I bet Chelsea could've found another Championship team to take him. But yeah, probably a bit tougher mentally being passed around like a cheap whore.
Disagree, and that seems like a strange comparison to me... Miazga has tons of physical advantages over Ream... the difference between Ream and Miazga is that Ream is like 99th percentile in terms of both intelligence and mentality, whereas Miazga is like 40th percentile for both. Same probably goes for emotional intelligence, empathy, social skills / communication skills, etc. I could see Ream turning into a successful coach once he retires, Miazga is more likely to end up on some Jersey shore reality tv show. Someone comparing Ream and Miazga makes me wonder if they understand anything about the sport at all...
I wouldn't be so harsh on Miazga since I don't know the guy, but I do agree comparing him to Ream is a giant stretch on the soccer field. One is a physical defender with little subtlety while the other is a guy who lacks some physical tools but in a fine overall soccer player and one of the best passers we have from the back. Would be tough to find two more different center backs.
I guess that's exactly the point. Ream had the mentality to stick it out. Doesn't seem that Miazga did and that's too bad. Miazga was a CB going from RBNY over to EU, same as Ream. That's the comparison. And he was a better overall player than Ream when he went over there. I wasn't comparing how they play CB, never did. Jeez you can be a jerk.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up the oldest capped USMNT field players in the modern* era: 1. Fernando Clavijo - 38 years and 162 days old in '94 2. Preki - 38 years and 72 days in '01 3. Thomas Dooley - 37 years and 284 days in '99 4. Jermaine Jones - 35 years and 145 days in '17 5. Earnie Stewart - 35 years and 143 days in '04 6. Frankie Hejduk - 35 years and 105 days in '09 7. DaMarcus Beasley - 35 years and 104 days in '17 8. Tim Ream - 35 years and 59 days in '22 9. Jeff Agoos - 35 years and 22 days in '03 10. Clint Dempsey - 34 years and 215 days in '17 Interestingly, the current top 5 are all dual nats who grew up in other countries. Not sure if there's any significance to that. Ream could end up 4th if he can stick around with the national team until next summer. But it will probably be hard for him to rise much further than that. *If I hadn't limited the list to modern players, Thomas Florie was 36 when he played in the 1934 World Cup, and John O'Connell was 2 months older than Clint Dempsey when he appeared in a 1954 World Cup qualifier. The list I looked at also had Joe Maca getting his last cap at the age of 54 in 1975, but whoever compiled that seems to have confused him with his son Alain Maca, who was 25 at the time.
I'm glad I found this thread. Most of us are prone to making grand pronouncements based on points in time. We saw Tim get burned for speed on several occasions in the past and after not getting called in for a long time we figured that was it for him. But he proved most of us wrong. He kept plugging away and finally the Fulham coaches saw his improvement. And finally Berhalter couldn't ignore him. We don't know exactly what went on in training and behind the scenes in Qatar. But it's likely two things happened- he showed well in training and clearly outplayed Long. And the assistant coaches probably told Gregg, "Dude, you're not really going to start that other guy, are you?" "Uhh, no, you guys are right, that other guy can't play at this level. Maybe Concacaf. But not here, not now."
Also........................he probably wouldn't have been there at all if we hadn't lost both Miles Robinson and Chris Richards to injury. We'll never know, but probably. But heck, this is what the good soccer playing nations do. They lose guys to injury/suspension/etc. and its "next man up." And that next man up can get the job done. We could probably have called up Erik Palmer-Brown or Mark McKenzie as well. They might have gotten the job done too. What's great about Tim is that he didn't just play well. From everything I've seen and heard, he was a leader that this very young team needed. Having guys like that around when dealing with behind-the-scenes stuff (like the Reyna problem) is so critical. [There's no reason to assume it was some assistant and not Berhalter than chose Tim. I mean, his assistant is Luchi Gonzalez, not Carlo Ancelotti.]
Tim Ream had an outstanding World Cup. Full credit to Berhalter for playing him all those minutes. He deserved every minute. He's now a USMNT legend.
Dont be surprised if he has another good 2-3 years starting at Fulham in him left. Hes found that Italian fountain of youth that kept the Italian defenders of the 80s/90s going into their late 30s
With Miazga I've always felt strongly the issue was the mental/emotional/maturity side. Of course he now has the chance to mature into a good solid pro, perhaps even an excellent pro. We'll see. A lot of us were quick to write off Ream a couple of years ago. We shouldn't be so quick to write off a guy who has tools like Miazga (a strong aerial presence, range, good with his feet, good agility for a big guy).
Indeed, if he's still playing at his current level in the summer of 2024 (that's a huge if that I'm not going to bet on just yet, but still), then there's no reason that he shouldn't be in the hunt for the Copa roster, as far as I'm concerned. The senior team has two mandates: win now, and prepare to win in the future, and starting younger guys just because they're younger violates the first, and doesn't necessarily aid the second.
You know Ream is eyeing the copa roster. I like it. Let a youngster don it from him fair and square. He’s not gonna give it up easy
I'll never forget one of Miazga's New York teammates calling him "dumb as a donkey" in the press. Hard to predict how a cycle evolves. People act like Ream came back from the wilderness. He started the Nations League Final against Mexico (which we were told was the "A" team), and started a WCQer. We'll just have to see how the pool develops.................. We do have Richards and Miles hopefully coming back to add to the other guys entering their primes like McKenzie, CCV, and EPB. If you're good enough, your age doesn't matter.
Ream told Berhalter he had to "sleep on it" when Berhalter called to tell him he was on the World Cup team "I told him I had to sleep on it."@timream5 says he needed some convincing when he learned he made the @USMNT roster for the 2022 World Cup. Watch our full interview with the Mound City Maldini » https://t.co/TsIYNe7uUe pic.twitter.com/qs4LPHEaKs— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) January 25, 2023 And he's not ruling out 2026 Age is just a number for @timream5.The @FulhamFC captain is not ruling out representing the @USMNT in 2026 at age 38. 🇺🇸🦅— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) January 26, 2023
The vast majority of Ream's playing time before Berhalter became manager occurred in 2014-2017 under Klinsmann and Arena, so I think it's pretty clear what era he's referring to when he talks about divided locker rooms. "...part of the program for 12 years, first coming into the program my first few years in MLS, there definitely was that kind of feeling of not-quite togetherness between the two. And that's where I go back to this previous cycle, where the togetherness has just been incredible."— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) March 21, 2023
2022/2023 might go down as Tim Ream having the single best season of any central defender in USMNT history. Personally, I can think of great seasons by Marcelo Balboa, Alexi Lalas, Eddie Pope, Carlos Bocanegra, Oguchi Onyewu, Jay DeMerit, Jimmy Conrad, and even more recently from Miles Robinson and Walker Zimmerman. But even at their best, I can’t think of a bigger year than what Tim Ream has had this year. The question is can he keep this up for another 3-4 years? He’s playing the best soccer of his life. It’s hard to think that he’s going to slump so much by then, on the other hand, it’s hard to think of any player playing at a high level at 38 years old. Therefore, that brings up the second question, how long do we hold onto Tim Ream? Do we build our backline around him or do we use him sparingly?