The Keeper: A Life of Saving Goals and Achieving Them (11 page)

A glimpse of us.

Manchester United is often talked about in purely financial terms—the most valuable soccer brand in the world, worth nearly $3 billion today. But for me this was even more of a cultural shift than a financial one.

A full-time staff of 600 supported the team. On game day, those ranks swelled to 1,200—nearly a hundred employees for every player on the field. During our preseason tour of the U.S., we traveled by private jet, chartered by the club from its owner, the Dallas Mavericks. It was a stunning 767 fitted with custom leather seats designed for the comfort of even the tallest NBA star—a far cry from the economy-class flights with the MetroStars, let alone the long-distance bus trips I’d taken with the Imperials.

By the time I arrived in Carrington for my first day of training with Manchester United, I would find a brand-new Mercedes waiting for me in the parking lot.

“You mean they’re just giving it to you?” Laura asked when I called to tell her. She was still weeks from joining me in England.

“Yeah,” I said. I could hear the disbelief in my voice. I was only a few years removed from my $800 Sentra; I still remembered the feel of that plastic steering wheel. “They’re just handing me the keys.”

I
probably felt the full power of the Man U brand when we played Sporting Lisbon, the last of our preseason friendlies. We had won all of our previous U.S. games, but that streak ended abruptly in the Portuguese capital.

Sporting had this kid playing for them—a skinny, baby-faced 18-year-old with blond highlights in his hair. He had everything: speed and athleticism, touch and vision. He danced over the ball, tormenting our defenders before leaving them in his dust and bearing down on Barthez.

The kid was sensational. And every time he touched the ball, the stadium turned into a giant party. The fans knew something
special was about to happen, and they were right: the kid performed astonishing tricks with the ball, then shrugged, as if to say, “Oh, that’s nothing.” It was a kind of look-at-me showmanship that bordered on arrogance, but it was impossible to take your eyes off him.

Later, in the locker room, I heard my teammates rave.
Ronaldo
, they exclaimed.
Cristiano Ronaldo.

I stayed quiet, taking it in, heartened by the fact that even the best players in the world were still capable of being awestruck.

When Ferguson came into the locker room, Rio Ferdinand and Nicky Butt rushed up to him.

“That kid, gaffer,” they exclaimed, using the British term for boss, “we’ve got to sign that kid.”

Barely a week later, Ferguson announced that Cristiano Ronaldo had become a Manchester United player. He would wear the number 7 shirt made famous by David Beckham.

It all seemed so simple. We saw him. We wanted him. We got him. One game, one glimpse of this kid, and suddenly we had the most promising young player any of us had ever seen. All it took was roughly $20 million and the aura of Manchester United.

T
raining was grueling—the pace, the intensity, the physicality. My teammates were, to a man, better than anyone I’d ever played with. They were stronger. They were more technical. They were faster in every way. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that some of the balls they sent my way reached speeds greater than my old Sentra ever had.

I had to react more quickly, be more decisive. Most of all, I had to
win
.

At Man U, my potential didn’t matter. Effort didn’t matter.
Winning was the sole currency. Winning had made my teammates rock stars. If I was going to hold my own, I’d have to
win
.

I
called Kasey Keller in London.

“So . . . uh . . . what do I need to know?” I asked. It was a stupid question, too broad to be meaningful. But how could I summarize how it felt to have gone from the soccer boondocks of MLS to the bright lights of the Premier League? It was impossible to explain the relentless pressure, the feeling that gnawed at me:
I’m not quite ready for this yet.

Kasey thought for a while, then answered simply, “Well, Tim, I guess my advice to you would be this: make as many saves as you can.”

I
n Europe, soccer seasons tend to open with a “Super Cup”—one champion playing another for best-of-the-best status. In England, that super-championship is the Community Shield, where the winner of the Premier League meets the winner of the FA Cup. The game doesn’t count in the standings; it’s a glorified exhibition.

Manchester United was the Premier League champion. Which meant that we would face Arsenal, the FA Cup champion. It was two heavyweights slugging it out before the season officially kicked off a week later.

Arsenal, like Man U, is one of the great Premier League powers. The London club had a pantheon of international stars, a slick passing game, and plenty of attacking flair. In their hundred-year history, they’d already won 9 FA cups and 12 First Division and Premier League titles.

Hours before the game, Tony Coton told me I’d be starting.
Not Fabien Barthez, who’d been the regular keeper. Me. Apparently it was on the strength of those friendlies I’d played in America. I’d made some tough saves against Juventus and Barcelona, and Ferguson decided to shake up the starting keeper position.

In the locker room, I saw a gray-and-white Manchester United goalkeeper’s jersey on a hanger with my name on it. I looked at it, marveling,
I’ll be wearing that today. I’ll be wearing that when I play for Manchester United.

Roy Keane, the captain, called the team in. Already, I was impressed with his take-no-prisoners attitude and blunt talk. He was known for being a hard man—a guy who didn’t give a crap about conventionality or politeness or anything he personally deemed as bullshit. He wanted to win, and he was going to tell us how. What wisdom would he impart in this all-important moment?

He reminded us of some tactical strategies, but then he said—in what I’d learn was his gruff, no-nonsense manner, “Just pass it to a red shirt, guys. It’s as simple as that: take the ball and pass it to another player in red.”

T
he game was a war from the first whistle. Seconds in, Phil Neville got a yellow card for a hard tackle on Arsenal’s Patrick Vieira. Then Arsenal’s Ashley Cole was booked for a clumsy challenge on Ole Gunnar Solskjær. We took the lead when Mikaël Silvestre scored on a header off a corner kick, but Arsenal responded moments later when Thierry Henry—Arsenal’s all time goal-scorer—won a free kick about 35 yards out.

With free kicks in scoring range, the goalkeeper sets up a defensive “wall”—a line of players, shoulder to shoulder, 10 yards from where the ball is spotted. The idea is to close off parts of the goal to the shooter, reducing the total area to be covered by the keeper.

The number of men you might put in your wall depends on many variables. Generally, you’re trying to cover as much of the goal as you can, without blocking a clear view of the ball or leaving their attackers unmarked. Against Henry, I called for a three-man wall and positioned myself in the unprotected area of the goal.

But Henry struck his shot with such power and precision that it rendered the wall useless. The ball flew over it and tucked inches inside the right post.

I dove, stretching my body flat out, but I couldn’t reach it.

At halftime, Ferguson just about took my head off.

Ferguson was famous for what the media referred to as his “hair dryer treatments,” so-called because he’d blow such blistering air at you, it felt like your hair was being straightened.

“A three-man wall!” he shouted, the muscles around his jaw so tight I could see them flex. “Against Henry! You needed four men on that wall. You’ve got to
think
”—he jabbed both index fingers at his forehead—“when you play this game.”

My teammates were quiet. I had heard enough about Ferguson to know that they’d all been through this themselves. But frankly, it scared the wits out of me.

“If you
cannae
handle the fucking stage”—his Scottish accent was coming through loud and clear—“I’ll send you right back to the MLS.”

The disdain in his voice when he said “MLS” was palpable.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes as a keeper, that’s for sure. I’ll make plenty more before I’m through. Granted, the three-man wall turned out to be the wrong strategy, given the free kick that Henry ultimately took. But the thing is, he might have opted for an entirely different shot. What if he had kicked it high and to
my left? Then a four-man wall could have made it harder for me to see the ball.

There had been no way to know what a world-class player like Henry would do; in the moment, all you can do is make a judgment call.

But I wasn’t going to say that to this legend of English soccer—and certainly not while his eyes were bugging wildly out of his head. I looked down at the ground and let him berate me—longer, I might add, than seemed necessary, all things considered.

His final words to me were soaked in derision. “You’re not in America anymore, son.”

N
either team scored in the second half. The match was still deadlocked at 1–1 at the final whistle. Since there’s no overtime in the Community Shield, the game would be settled by a penalty kick shootout.

Sometimes people ask me how I feel about penalty kicks, the ultimate high-stakes moment of a game. My answer is simple: I love them. I have loved penalty kicks since I was 12 years old. I have no proof, but I believe that my heightened senses—the flip side of my TS—makes me better able to read the shooter, to anticipate balls better than most keepers.

And while it’s true that the likelihood of actually making a save is fairly low, a keeper doesn’t need to stop them all. If you can save one or two, you generally end up a hero.

Plus there’s something about that moment standing in goal, just you and the shooter. There’s not a time when you’re more alert, more alive, more attuned to absolutely everything around you.

Most of the time, a penalty kick is a guessing game. Which
way will the shooter send the ball? Which way should you dive? You can try to make it an educated guess—keepers spend a tremendous amount of time studying videos of different shooters’ PK histories. You can also try to read the player’s body language, a tiny motion he might make in his run-up to the ball that hints at the direction of the shot. In that case, you might have a fraction of a second to decide.

More often than not, though, it’s a crapshoot.

Paul Scholes was up first. The stadium was silent. As Scholes prepared to take the kick, Arsenal’s keeper Jens Lehmann danced all over the box, jumping back and forth trying to distract him. Didn’t work. Scholes put it away.

Then I faced down the Brazilian Edu. I couldn’t read him, and I didn’t know enough about his tendencies, so I guessed. I dove left.

Although it was the correct choice, his shot was just beyond my reach.

1–1.

Rio Ferdinand scored; I stopped van Bronckhorst.

2–1.

Then van Nistelrooy missed and Arsenal’s Sylvain Wiltord stepped up. I guessed wrong again. I flew one way, the ball sailed past me the other way. I was so mad at myself I kicked the ball into the upper corner of the net. 2–2.

United’s Solskjær: score.

Arsenal’s Lauren: score.

United’s Forlán: score. Now we were up 4–3.

Arsenal had only one bullet left in the chamber.

The kicker was Robert Pirès, a French international who the previous year had scored the winning goal in the FA Cup final.
Pirès was generally regarded as one of the best players in the league.

If I could stop him, we’d win.

That summer I had watched the French national team on television and happened to see Pirès take a penalty kick. For some reason, that image stuck in my head. Standing now in the goal, with Pirès directly in front of me, I saw the entire shot play out in my mind almost like I was watching a video replay—could picture the ball’s precise trajectory, how it veered sharply toward the low right corner of the goal.

So that’s where I dove. I had to extend my body fully, reach toward it with everything I had. Even before I made contact with the ball, I knew: I had this one. I forced it wide.

Half of the stadium—the roughly 30,000 fans in red shirts—sprang to their feet and went berserk.

I got up, barely registering the red jerseys that were already tearing toward me. Instead, I turned toward the fans and raised my arms in victory.

By the time I wheeled around, Mikaël Silvestre was wrapping his arms around me. We were still embracing when John O’Shea flew toward us in a leaping hug. Then Ruud was there, encircling his arms around the three of us. The rest of the team piled on top: Giggs and Keane and Ferdinand, all those legends playfully punching my stomach and rubbing my bald head.

We’d won. Even better, we’d won on penalty kicks.

The Man U fans jumped up and down all over that stadium. They waved flags and twirled scarves in the air like lassos. In front of them stood Sir Alex Ferguson. He looked as if he had forgotten, by now, all about that three-man wall.

I
n the wake of the Arsenal victory, I was named the starting goalkeeper. Manchester United soon began negotiating Barthez’s transfer to the French club Marseille. It happened in an instant. That, I knew, was one of the risks of playing soccer at this level. If I didn’t perform, there would be somebody right behind me who’d be thrilled to jump into my place. The gap that separated me from my competition would never be more than a game. Or a coaching change. Or an injury.

Privately, Fabien was always friendly. Publicly, he made statements like
I blame only myself if I lose my spot
. This from a guy who had won the Premier League the previous season and won the World Cup and European Championship with France and was now watching as his job was handed to a 24-year-old straight from Major League Soccer.

Here, in the most competitive position on the world’s most competitive team, he was nothing but classy.

If that should happen to me someday
, I thought,
I hope I’ll handle it the same way.