World Cup Breakdown x Tim Howard

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the 2010 World Cup kicks off this Friday, June 11th. Yes, America is currently under basketball siege, but the rest of the world is ready for a match that will have one of the largest audiences in the history of televised sports.  I just recently started learning about soccer because everyone I know is super hyped about it. It is also the most played sport in the world, I didn't know where to start so heres a small rundown on what I learned about for our fellow Americans.

The first American match is against England this Saturday, June 12th in Rustenburg, South Africa. This is a big deal. Forget the Superbowl, some estimates have calculated 1 billion to watch the World Cup games. That’s almost a 7th of the global population. The last time the Americans met in England in a World Cup was sixty years ago! in June, 1950, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The Americans beat England 1-0 in what was regarded as the greatest upset in the history of World Cup soccer after that the U.S. men’s soccer team did not make another appearance in a World Cup for forty years.

“By all accounts, the U.S. team’s current goalkeeper, Tim Howard, will be a linchpin in South Africa,” reports a fantastic article in this week’s New Yorker by Hampton Sides. “Howard, who starts for Everton FC in the English Premier League, will be under enormous pressure in Rustenburg. Luckily for the Americans, he is in the prime of his career, and generally thought to be one of the best goalkeepers in the world.”

And Howard has Tourette’s Syndrome?! The highest paid player in American history has a disorder that makes him swear uncontrollably. His focus during games usually calms his symptoms but he refuses to take any medication for the disorder. Im one step closer to figuring out The World Cup and now I want U.S. to win!