The Keeper: A Life of Saving Goals and Achieving Them (16 page)

I couldn’t find a rhythm with that footwork. I’m a perfectionist, so when I can’t grasp something, it’s infuriating.

“Let’s stop this,” I snapped when I started getting frustrated.

“Sure, Tim,” Woods said. “We can come back to that one.”

I got aggravated again the next day—and I cut it short again. But after a while, I was more exasperated by my inability to grasp it than I was by the drill itself. Eventually, I came to training and said, “Let’s try that footwork drill again.”

Chris was taking me to the next level. Yet he was comfortable enough in his own skin, his own success, that he didn’t need to micromanage me.

Whereas Tony Coton had walked around like a used car salesman, chest all puffed out, and always looking to cut a deal, Chris’s demeanor was both calm and calming.

Coton had been a good goalkeeper, but not at Chris’s level. Chris had been capped 43 times for England. Maybe that accounted for the gulf between them. Or maybe they simply had different relationships with the manager—Alex Ferguson versus David Moyes. Coton was never close to Ferguson, not really a member of his inner circle. Chris, like the rest of Moyes’s staff, was a core part of the coaching team.

Whatever the difference was, it was profound. I’ve since played with Chris for hundreds of games—at Everton, and later,
too, on the U.S. Men’s National Team. His confidence to see our relationship as a collaboration has never wavered.

Every single game, win or lose, he shakes my hand, pats me on the back.

Then we get back to work.

T
here was a lot to like about Everton. But it was the Merseyside derby that really sold me.

The city of Liverpool has two Premier League teams—Everton and Liverpool—and the rivalry between them pits neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member. Driving through Liverpool’s streets, you’ll see blue Everton flags hanging mere feet from red Liverpool ones. Were you to walk inside those homes, you might see half of a household in red, the other half in blue, all of them “winding each other up”—trash-talking.

Liverpool is a port town, built on the bank of the Mersey River, and the folks who live there—these “Scousers,” as they’re known colloquially, after the traditional Liverpudlian stew—are the dockworkers, the steelworkers. They are hard people, and they’re fierce in their loyalties. Liverpudlians are so passionate about their respective teams that the trash bins (“wheelie bins”) can’t be either red or blue, lest they risk vandalism by a devoted fan of the other color. The trash bins are all purple.

Twice a year, Everton and Liverpool meet in a derby (pronounced “darby”)—once at Goodison, and once at Anfield, Liverpool’s stadium. While there are plenty of other crosstown rivalries—Arsenal versus Tottenham, for example, or Manchester United versus Manchester City—the Merseyside derby is the most combative of all, complete with more red cards than any other in the Premier League.

My fourth game with Everton, September 9, 2006, would be my first Merseyside derby. I could feel the tension grow as we got closer to the match. Half of Liverpool shouted to me from the streets, “You beat those Reds this weekend.” The other half—those dressed in red—shouted, well, different things entirely.

Inside our training complex, the halls buzzed. Not just the players, either. The cooks in the kitchen, all the support staff.

“You make sure you get those Reds!” called a laundry lady to me as we passed in the hallway.

“Gonna take ’em down, are ya?” said a woman who cleared my plate after breakfast.

Jimmy Martin, Everton’s curmudgeonly “kit man”—the guy who’s in charge of all the clothing we need for every training session, every warm-up, every game—regaled me with stories of past derbies.

“Ninety-one was the greatest of them all,” said Jimmy. He was in his sixties, with a thick Scouser’s accent, a short temper, and a fondness for profanity. “Fuckin’ eight goals! One of ’em a last-second equalizer. A brilliant FA Cup comeback. We might have drawn ’em 4–4, but we showed the Blues spirit that day, I’ll tell ya. Then we came back to beat ’em in the replay. . . .”

Jimmy narrowed his eyes. He challenged me: “I know you’re on loan, but you’re going to play it like a real Blue, aren’t ’cha?”

“Yeah, Jimmy,” I answered. “I sure am.”

And I meant it.

T
here’s a lot to remember about that first derby. I recall, for example, the moments before the game: lining up in the tunnel with my new team against our historic rivals. Neither side looked at the other. There were no hands shaken, no half hugs or fist
bumps or friendly claps on the back. All eyes were fixed forward. I remember the flood of pride I felt when the theme from
Z-Cars
(an old British television show), today the Everton fight song, started up, the crowd going wild. I remember the walk out to the field, all my new teammates touching the Everton sign,
HOME OF THE BLUES
.

I didn’t touch it; I was only on loan, and I hadn’t earned that honor. Not yet.

But what I remember most are those fans. They reminded me, in many ways, of my own family: they were roll-up-your-sleeve, blue-collar fighters who’d had to scrap for everything they had. In the same way that I once wanted to give my mom that Mother’s Day goal, I wanted to give these guys something to cheer about. I wanted them to be able to walk into work on Monday morning with their heads held high.

I made my first save inside of ten seconds, and I made every one after that. We won the game 3–0. We crushed Liverpool. It was Everton’s biggest victory over their neighbors for 42 years. The crowd went absolutely bonkers.

L
ater that afternoon, I was back home with Laura and Jacob. Jacob and I were playing peekaboo—every time I pulled my hands away from my face and cried, “Peekaboo!” he burst into fits of giggles.

Laura sat beside us. “You know what, Tim?” she said. “You haven’t once wondered what David Moyes thinks about you.”

I glanced at her. “I’m not worried.”

Jacob kicked out his chubby feet, so I did another peekaboo.

She was right: I hadn’t felt insecure around Moyes or doubted that he was behind me. Although I’d noticed him during the
game and hugged him proudly at the end of it, I hadn’t been concerned about what he thought. For me, it was all about those fans.

I swept Jacob up in my arms then and buried my face in his belly. I gave him some raspberry kisses and he squealed happily.

“Bedtime for you now, little man,” I said.

As I walked up the stairs I called back to Laura. “I love this team!”

A
t the same time that Chris Woods allowed me to take charge of my own training regimen, I began to cement my own series of personal rituals, those tiny motions that made me feel prepared. It was all coming together for me: my confidence, my control.

I’ll admit up front that the line between superstition and preparation—maybe even superstition and OCD—can be very blurry. But the things I did before those early Everton games felt right. So I did them the next time. And the time after that. For example, I didn’t touch the Everton sign in the tunnel before the derby. Although by now I’ve earned the honor, I have never touched it since. Hundreds and hundreds of games later, I still won’t do it.

When I taped my hands for those early games, I did it in a specific order—left index, left pinkie, right index, right middle, right pinkie, left ring. I’ve never done it differently.

My own rituals quickly blended with my teammates’. When Leon Osman and I shook hands before an early game, we bumped shoulders. To this day, if we don’t follow the handshake with a shoulder tap, I’ll say, “That doesn’t feel right.”

And Leon will agree. “Let’s do it again.”

Same thing with Chris Woods. When he fired balls at me in warm-ups, I had to deal with them in a way that felt exactly right.
I could see that he didn’t know what constituted “exactly right.” But he listened when I said, “That’s good, no more.”

Poor Jimmy Martin, too. I quickly started to drive that man crazy.

Before games, Jimmy set out my warm-up clothes, all in a size large. But one day I tried them on and they felt . . . wrong. Wrong in the same way that packing my bags before youth league games in New Jersey felt wrong. Wrong as in,
it had to be changed right now.

I sent for him, and he came in grumbling. “What’s the matter? I know I set it out right for ya, Tim. I check and double-check your kits, you know.”

“I need a medium,” I said.

“You’re a large.”

I shook my head. “I need a medium
today
, Jimmy.”

It didn’t take long for Jimmy to start setting out two complete outfits, one large, one medium.

But I’m telling you: it helped. It was important that I was wearing the exact right-feeling shirt on the exact right day; it gave me a sense of control. And if I was going to succeed, I needed to feel in control.

The Everton players had their own rituals, too. I learned pretty quickly that you don’t close the door to the bathroom stall. Ever. Not even when you need to—to put it euphemistically—
sit down.

Mind you, these bathrooms are tiny. The whole locker area is small, no clubby chairs, no frills. Some hooks and stools, a refrigerator, and maybe a massage table crammed in a corner. When you’re sitting there with the door open, there’s no one who doesn’t see you.

But that’s the superstition. And by now I’d learned: you honor rituals when you have them.

If Moyes walked in while I sat on the pot, pants at my ankles, I’d shrug, like,
Yeah, I know this is weird, but what can you do?
He shook his head and averted his eyes, as he did for every player.

Whatever
, he seemed to be saying. Whatever we needed to do to feel prepared out there.

A
t Christmas, I joined the team for their hospital visits, followed by the Everton Santa Claus—dressed only in blue and white, because of course he can’t wear any red—and handed out presents to children. After our hospital visits, one of our defenders, Alan Stubbs, walked over to me. Alan was a Scouser through and through; he’d grown up in Kirkby, one of Liverpool’s hardscrabble neighborhoods. Stubbs was stubborn, blunt, and tough. The guy had battled cancer and came back even harder than before.

Alan placed his hand on my back. “Tim,” he said, “I wanted to tell you that you’ve done brilliant for us so far.”

I was about to say thanks, but he held up his hand. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added. “You’ve got a long way to go. But the fans have really taken a liking to you. It feels . . .”

He paused for a moment. “Feels like you’ve become one of us, really.”

I said only one word: “Thanks.” Inside, though, I swelled with pride.

Alan shrugged. “Don’t let it go to your head, mate.”

O
ne of Moyes’s strengths was his ability to recognize “Everton” players, guys with very little ego and a high degree of loyalty.
Once in a rare while, a player would fall into his lap—maybe at a cut-rate price or in a position he needed—who perhaps had a bit of a question mark about his character. But Moyes would straighten him out quickly.

There was one player who was an unmitigated screw-up, forever causing drama around the team. He’d exhausted plenty of chances, and not just second or third chances, either.

After one game, we were in the locker room. Music was playing, a few of the guys had started showering. The atmosphere was loose. The fitness coach walked in.

“Right, listen up,” he said. “Substitutes and guys who didn’t get to play, come with me. Let’s do our running drills.”

This player, the screw-up, shook his head and didn’t get up. The fitness coach left with the rest of the reserves. Next thing I knew, David Moyes barged into the locker room, his blue eyes flashing.

He pointed his finger at the player who’d refused to run. “You’re going to get your ass out there,” he said, “and you’re going to run.”

Moyes grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and started shaking the kid, banging him against the wall.

The music clicked off.

“You’re going to run,” rumbled Moyes. Bang.

“You’re going to run.” Bang.

Suddenly the tough guy didn’t seem so tough. “I’m going to call the police,” he cried out.

“You do that,” snarled Moyes. “In fact, I’ll go get them myself.” Moyes knew they would probably be Everton fans anyway.

Lo and behold, that kid went outside and ran. You didn’t cross Moyes.

M
oyes was true to his word with me. I could have a bad game, and he’d put me in the next one . . . and in the 200 games after that.

We’d go on that season to finish in sixth place. Not exactly a Manchester United–level success, but there’s something to be said for ambition as a driving force, instead of fear. And that’s the thing I was starting to understand about United. The players were afraid. They feared losing. They feared Ferguson. They feared, above all, falling from their perch.

In the spring, Moyes made me a permanent offer, for more money than I’d ever earned at Manchester United. I felt like I’d hit the jackpot in every way. Bigger salary. Supportive teammates. A goalkeeping coach whom I trusted completely. A manager who trusted me completely. The confidence that I could keep playing no matter what. And those fans—those crazy die-hards who made me smile again and again.

Before long, I had the number 24 tattooed over my right rib.

I
n the 28th minute, I make my second save of the game, a right-footed shot from Eden Hazard. It’s a routine save for me.

I feel good so far. Belgium is dominating—we’re spending too much time in our own box—but our defense has been solid. They’ve made some strong clearances, blocked crosses from the flanks.

We’re holding our own.

This is how we’ve won a lot of games. It’s become a kind of blueprint for us: hold a high line, don’t drop too deep, don’t let them get behind us. Wear them down.

Then, when they’re frustrated, smarting from their inability to finish off their chances, they’ll change their tactics, try to find a new way to break us down.