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"FacebookPinterest\n\nThe world agrees: Tim Howard is awesome. Why are we so damn good at producing keepers (and so average at every other position)?\n\nThe planet&amp;#39;s top team, Spain, had gone two and a half years and thirty-five matches without a loss when it met the United States and goalkeeper Tim Howard last June in the Confederations Cup semifinal. Spain bombarded the American goal with shots\u2014twenty-nine in all\u2014but the six-foot-three Howard threw himself again and again into the fusillade, leading his team to an improbable 2-0 victory. At the tourney&amp;#39;s end, Howard beat out two of the world&amp;#39;s most decorated goalies, Italy&amp;#39;s Gianluigi Buffon and Spain&amp;#39;s Iker Casillas, to take the tournament&amp;#39;s Golden Glove award, and sounded a warning to the soccer world: The next great American goalkeeper is here, and he&amp;#39;s ready for South Africa.\n\n&amp;quot;He is a big game player,&amp;quot; says Tim Mulqueen, a goalkeeping coach for the U.S. youth national teams who discovered Howard when he was twelve. &amp;quot;The bigger the occasion, the better he plays. He could be the great equalizer to push America deep into that tournament.&amp;quot;\n\nHoward, 31, who tends goal professionally for Everton in the English Premier League, is known for his refles and athleticism. &amp;quot;He&amp;#39;s an outstanding shot-blocker,&amp;quot; says Bruce Arena, a former U.S. coach who began his career as a keeper. But Howard is also a student of the game. &amp;quot;Tim is a very cerebral, very smart, very educated goalkeeper who studies his craft religiously,&amp;quot; says Mulqueen. &amp;quot;He knows the tendencies of players.&amp;quot;\n\nFor many fans around the world, the U.S. and goalkeeping go hand in hand. Howard&amp;#39;s performance against Spain was reminiscent of Kasey Keller&amp;#39;s dramatic shutout of Brazil in the 1998 Gold Cup and Brad Friedel&amp;#39;s highlight-reel display against South Korea in the 2002 World Cup. When Howard won the Premier League goalkeeper of the year award in 2004, he was the second-straight U.S. national to do so, after Friedel had won a similar honor the year before. It prompts the question: Why do we produce so many more world-class keepers than field players?\n\nIt might be that Americans are trained at a young age to use their hands, not their feet. &amp;quot;The different sports people grow up with here,&amp;quot; says Arena, &amp;quot;whether it&amp;#39;s baseball or basketball\u2014the skills are very similar to those you need in goal.&amp;quot; All of the great American keepers have been tremendous at American sports. Howard, for one, was a standout basketball player for his high school team.\n\nBut it takes more than good hand-eye coordination to excel in goal; it takes guts\u2014and maybe a bit of dumb luck. Howard says he first found himself between the posts because he was the biggest player on his team. &amp;quot;At a young age,&amp;quot; Howard says, &amp;quot;you need a big kid who&amp;#39;s brave and who wants to throw his face in front of the ball. A lot of times, I think goalkeepers become goalkeepers by default.&amp;quot;\n\nPerhaps the U.S. just happened to have a number of excellent athletes become default keepers at the same time. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#39;t think it&amp;#39;s inherent that America is always going to have great goalkeeping,&amp;quot; says Mulqueen. &amp;quot;I think we&amp;#39;ve been fortunate from [Tony] Meola, Friedel, Keller, and now Timmy. It&amp;#39;s been almost the golden age of goalkeeping.&amp;quot; Catch it while you can.\u2014AUSTIN KELLEY"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/world-cup-one-of-the-best-goalies-on-earth-isamerican>