The gulf between the Rapids and Tim Howard was bigger than the Atlantic Ocean. Why on earth would one of the best goalkeepers on the planet leave England for a last-place team in Major League Soccer best known for being cheap with the payroll?
And that wasn’t the worst of it. Running late for a crucial appointment to woo Howard, the Rapids were stuck somewhere in the swamps of New Jersey, pinned down by a blizzard.
Holding the No. 1 shirt of his new club, Howard smiled Tuesday for 10 television cameras at a standing-room-only news conference, ready and itching to play in his first game on the Fourth of July. The inside story of how Colorado landed the biggest signing in franchise history, however, began in the dead of winter, with Rapids executive Josh Kroenke telling his top lieutenants, “We’re sleeping in this airport.”
The winter of 2016 was cruel to the northeastern United States when a storm named Jonas was cursed up and down the seaboard for wreaking havoc like Snowzilla. Get the picture? As the nasty weather lingered, it threatened to stop Rapids president Tim Hinchey, vice president of soccer operations Paul Bravo and Kroenke from getting a face-to-face meeting with Howard that was necessary if Colorado was to have any realistic hope of closing the deal.
“You want to talk about commitment,” Kroenke told me. “We book our flights. We’re flying from Denver to Jersey and on over to England. But that was when a big, icy winter storm hit the East Coast. We get to Newark and our flight gets canceled. So we rebook, rebook, rebook. We finally figure out that by the time we get to England, we’re only going to have 30 minutes to meet with Tim, and we might not even have that much time. So I tell our guys, ‘Even if we have to sleep in this airport, we’re getting over there to meet Tim, even if it’s only for half an hour.’ And I think Tim Howard knew the level of commitment when he found out we were willing to sleep in an airport to come talk with him about the Rapids.”
After finishing at the bottom of the Western Conference table in 2015, with a league-worst 33 goals in 34 games that brought into doubt whether former Rapids star Pablo Mastroeni was the right choice to coach this squad, the team did not cry. It went to work. Colorado bolstered its roster with attacker Shkelzen Gashi, twice the leading scorer in the Swiss Super League, and midfielder Jermaine Jones, whose fiery competitiveness had long burned hot for the U.S. men’s national team.
When the Rapids contingent finally arrived in Europe to make its recruiting pitch to Howard, the fact he respected Mastroeni, based on playing together with the USMNT, certainly helped to gain the keeper’s trust.
“Pablo is a dear friend of mine. And now he’s a coach. I have to do everything he says,” said Howard, who joked with Mastroeni the way old friends do at reunions.
“When we played together from 2002 until 2009, I didn’t always listen. But I promise I’ll be on my best behavior now. Pablo’s a warrior. He’s a guy, who on countless occasions, I stood in the tunnel with (before a match). We pumped each other up. We were teammates. And we went out there to battle.”
The battle begins anew. This time the partnership of Howard and Mastroeni gives Colorado a real fighting chance in any MLS game.
No longer can it be said the Rapids are the unloved soccer stepchild of the Kroenke family, also the majority owner of Arsenal in the English Premier League. After signing Howard to the most lucrative contract in club history, Colorado increased its payroll from $5.05 million to $8.49 million, a bump of 68 percent that moved the Rapids from 17th in the 20-team league to No. 6 overall for expenditures on talent.
“I’m a competive guy,” Kroenke said. “And I want to win.”
At age 37, Howard stubbornly believes there are 100 top-quality appearances for Colorado left in his career. He joins a Rapids team that has shocked MLS by ascending to first place in the Western Conference after suffering only two defeats during the first half of the season.
“I’m scared to death of failure,” said Howard, who lost his starting job to Joel Robles after serving as Everton’s goalie since 2006. Is he worthy of the 3 1/2-year, $8 million contract the Rapids have invested?
“It’s not money. … It’s the pressure to pull your own weight and be a good teammate and win games,” Howard said. “I always think when that fire isn’t there, when I wake up and pull the shirt on and there’s not butterflies, I’ve got to start re-evaluating things and maybe think about finishing (my career), because ultimately that’s what makes me go.”
Howard and the Rapids both have something to prove. Howard wants to demonstrate his skills have not slipped from the world-class heights that made him a worldwide internet sensation during the 2014 World Cup. And Colorado? Fair or not, the Rapids must show they are for real rather than a flash in the pan.
“We have this midseason gift in Tim Howard,” said Mastroeni, who added the veteran keeper can be the spark that is “going to push this group to where we want to go: the playoffs and beyond.”
How does a soccer team go from worst to first, from hapless to a championship contender?
By not letting anything — money, a lousy reputation or even a freaking blizzard — get in the way.
