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Authors: Tim Howard
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something that would ground me. I had come to my faith seeking stability. I yearned for purpose in the years to come.
And big things were coming—that was for sure.
I want to go to Europe.
Just as graduating to a travel team was the obvious next step from the Brunswick recreation league, a move from MLS to Europe became the way forward.
European clubs are institutions, often more meaningful than local governments or cultural landmarks. The best players on earth wind up in Europe.
If I was going to become the best, that’s where I needed to go.But to get there, I needed an agent. I had already encountered a number of them—the strong-handshake, fast-talking, name-dropping types. These slicksters often hung around in locker rooms, team and league events, and road hotels. The more success I had, the more they gravitated to me. And when they approached me, they acted as if they were the sole person who could bring me vast fortune and fame.
Their bluster held me back, kept me from committing.
Then I met Dan. A lawyer with a master’s degree in history from Oxford University, Dan never planned to be an agent. But he loved soccer and had attended the University of Virginia Law School at a time when UVA was the top college team in the country. When MLS launched in 1996, a number of those UVA players had called him to ask for help with their contracts. Now he had a solid list of MLS clients, including guys like Eddie Pope, Ben Olsen, and Josh Wolff, all of whom I knew and respected.
We met in a midtown Manhattan restaurant for lunch. Dan asked me about my goals, and I said one word: “Europe.”
The waiter poured water. Dan sat quietly, waiting until our glasses were full. Then he replied, “That’s a great goal. But Europe isn’t one thing. It’s many different clubs, within different leagues, within a whole lot of different countries.”
It was a thoughtful, low-key response—so different from the other agents I’d talked to who heard “Europe” and immediately said, “Done.”
“You’re a good goalkeeper,” Dan continued, “but even so, a move to Europe isn’t going to be easy.”
He explained some of the obstacles. First, European clubs rarely recruit internationally for goalkeepers the way they recruitfor strikers, attackers, and center-backs. Most countries believe they can produce their own keepers.
There was also the language barrier. A midfielder or striker might be able to get away with speaking a different language than the rest of the team. But not the guy whose job involves organizing the defense.
“England’s your best option,” Dan explained. “But even if there’s interest there, it will be difficult to get a work permit.” A player can be sure of obtaining a work permit only if they’ve played 75 percent of their country’s national team games over a two-year period. I hadn’t.
To get a permit, then, I would have to go through an appeals process. Those appeals, particularly for Americans, were often declined.
“In the meantime,” Dan said, “I’d recommend you focus on other European countries without such tight restrictions. Maybe you can even get an invitation to train at one of these clubs in the MLS off-season—it’s often a great way to fuel interest.”
By the time lunch was over, my European dreams in some ways felt farther away than ever. But in another, important way, they felt more real, more concrete, than they ever had: now I understood the obstacles. I had a sense of what it would take to overcome them. And thanks to Dan—who I already decided would be my agent—I had a plan.
I t was a good year. I played every minute of every game that season. Although I let in plenty of goals—I can still remember, for example, a San Jose rookie phenom named Landon Donovan netting his first-ever MLS goal against me that season—I finishedstrong. I had a 1.33 goals-against average (the average number of goals per game conceded over the course of a year), a pretty
And big things were coming—that was for sure.
I want to go to Europe.
Just as graduating to a travel team was the obvious next step from the Brunswick recreation league, a move from MLS to Europe became the way forward.
European clubs are institutions, often more meaningful than local governments or cultural landmarks. The best players on earth wind up in Europe.
If I was going to become the best, that’s where I needed to go.But to get there, I needed an agent. I had already encountered a number of them—the strong-handshake, fast-talking, name-dropping types. These slicksters often hung around in locker rooms, team and league events, and road hotels. The more success I had, the more they gravitated to me. And when they approached me, they acted as if they were the sole person who could bring me vast fortune and fame.
Their bluster held me back, kept me from committing.
Then I met Dan. A lawyer with a master’s degree in history from Oxford University, Dan never planned to be an agent. But he loved soccer and had attended the University of Virginia Law School at a time when UVA was the top college team in the country. When MLS launched in 1996, a number of those UVA players had called him to ask for help with their contracts. Now he had a solid list of MLS clients, including guys like Eddie Pope, Ben Olsen, and Josh Wolff, all of whom I knew and respected.
We met in a midtown Manhattan restaurant for lunch. Dan asked me about my goals, and I said one word: “Europe.”
The waiter poured water. Dan sat quietly, waiting until our glasses were full. Then he replied, “That’s a great goal. But Europe isn’t one thing. It’s many different clubs, within different leagues, within a whole lot of different countries.”
It was a thoughtful, low-key response—so different from the other agents I’d talked to who heard “Europe” and immediately said, “Done.”
“You’re a good goalkeeper,” Dan continued, “but even so, a move to Europe isn’t going to be easy.”
He explained some of the obstacles. First, European clubs rarely recruit internationally for goalkeepers the way they recruitfor strikers, attackers, and center-backs. Most countries believe they can produce their own keepers.
There was also the language barrier. A midfielder or striker might be able to get away with speaking a different language than the rest of the team. But not the guy whose job involves organizing the defense.
“England’s your best option,” Dan explained. “But even if there’s interest there, it will be difficult to get a work permit.” A player can be sure of obtaining a work permit only if they’ve played 75 percent of their country’s national team games over a two-year period. I hadn’t.
To get a permit, then, I would have to go through an appeals process. Those appeals, particularly for Americans, were often declined.
“In the meantime,” Dan said, “I’d recommend you focus on other European countries without such tight restrictions. Maybe you can even get an invitation to train at one of these clubs in the MLS off-season—it’s often a great way to fuel interest.”
By the time lunch was over, my European dreams in some ways felt farther away than ever. But in another, important way, they felt more real, more concrete, than they ever had: now I understood the obstacles. I had a sense of what it would take to overcome them. And thanks to Dan—who I already decided would be my agent—I had a plan.
I t was a good year. I played every minute of every game that season. Although I let in plenty of goals—I can still remember, for example, a San Jose rookie phenom named Landon Donovan netting his first-ever MLS goal against me that season—I finishedstrong. I had a 1.33 goals-against average (the average number of goals per game conceded over the course of a year), a pretty
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