Soccer notes: Tim Howard to start in goal for U.S. in Copa third-place game
Tim Howard – remember him? – will be in goal for just the fourth time in five months when the United States plays Colombia in Glendale, Arizona, on Saturday night for third place in the Copa America.
Howard started in his second straight World Cup two years ago and had 16 saves in the 2-1, extra-time loss to Belgium in the round of 16. He took a one-year sabbatical from the national team, then returned last fall and alternated with Brad Guzan. But Guzan, who started in last year’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, also earned the job for this year’s Copa America.
Guzan has started in nine straight games, but U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann said Friday that Howard will be in goal against Colombia “because he has been outstanding to help the team go all the way through in this tournament, helping Brad Guzan wherever he could, keeping the spirit very positive and pushing from behind.”
“Guzan is totally on board the fact to give Tim this game,” the coach said.
Speaking to the media for the first time since Klinsmann picked Guzan over him in May, Howard was asked if it had been a long wait to get this chance.
“Uh, yeah,” he said.
And he said it didn’t matter to him that it was a third-place game against a Colombia team coming off a 2-0 semifinal loss to Chile. The U.S. was eliminated with a 4-0 defeat to Argentina.
“It’s not had to get up for,” Howard said. “It’s the third-place game in Copa America. No one thought we’d be here, so it’s exciting.”
Since Joel Robles supplanted him as Everton’s starter in late January, Howard has appeared in just three games – a 2-0 loss at Guatemala in a World Cup qualifier on March 25, and in the Toffees’ last two home games, raising his Everton appearances to 414. He joins Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids next month.
The 31st-ranked United States lost to No. 3 Colombia 2-0 in the Copa opener.
Kane held in check
Some of the continent’s top strikers are finding it tough at the low-scoring European Championship, stifled by so-called weaker teams employing defensive tactics to grind out points.
England striker Harry Kane might know this better than anyone.
The leading scorer in last season’s English Premier League with 25 goals for Tottenham, Kane didn’t score in the group stage and doesn’t remember even having a sight on goal against the deep, packed defenses of Russia, Wales and – as a second-half substitute – Slovakia.
Iceland is next up for England in the last 16 in Chantilly, France,on Monday, and it could be more of the same.
“Every team in the Euros is a good, solid team, they have a good base and can defend and make it difficult for us,” Kane said Friday. “You see it at club level, too. There are teams who put in good performances to make it difficult for the big ones.
“That’s something we are going to have to deal with.”
The average of 1.92 goals per game in the group stage is the lowest at a European Championship since 1992. Kane is in good company in not scoring yet – Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Mueller were expected to be among the top scorers in France but didn’t find the target in group play. France’s main striker, Olivier Giroud, has scored once.
Do it again?
After staging a successful expanded Copa America in the United States for the tournament’s 100th anniversary, soccer officials intend to discuss whether to establish a new event that would see regular competition between the regions.
And, the U.S. Soccer Federation hopes this year’s tournament could be a springboard to hosting a World Cup for the second time.
With only the final and third-place game remaining, the 16-nation tournament has drawn 1.36 million fans, an average of 45,491. That’s down from the 1994 World Cup in the U.S., but nearly double the average crowd of last year’s Copa America in Chile.