Americans Abroad

Howard stops two penalties, leads Manchester United past Arsenal in Community Shield tiebreaker.

By Robert Wagman (in Washington, D.C.),
Gary Davidson (in Washington, D.C.),
Christopher Courtney (in Germany)
and Mark Flannery (in France)
SoccerTimes

(Sunday, August 10, 2000) -- In the first official match of his Manchester United career, United States goalkeeper Tim Howard stopped two of five Arsenal penalty kicks to lead Manchester United to a 4-3 shootout victory in the Community Shield charity match after a 1-1 draw at Millennium Stadium in Wales.

Howard's first match for the Red Devils on British soil was for the Community Shield which is awarded to the winner of the battle between last season's champion from England' Premier League (Manchester) and the FA Cup winner (Arsenal). Howard excelled in his first two starts for Man. U., in a 4-1 triumph over Juventus of Italy and 3-1 over Barcelona of Spain in the recent Champions World tour in the U.S.

Howard faced little difficulty against Arsenal and was beaten only when he came up inches short of Thierry Henry's 30-yard dipping free kick in the 19th minute. In the tiebreaker, which came immediately after regulation, Howard guessed correctly and stopped Giovanni van Bronckhorst in the second round. When Ruud van Nistelrooy missed for United, it came down to the final kick to be taken by Arsenal's Robert Pires. Again Howard guessed correctly, dove to his left, and smothered the shot. He was mobbed by his teammates.

After the match, a number of British commentators came to much of the same conclusion -- Howard still must learn to communicate better with his new teammates. For instance, on the Henry free kick that eluded him, Howard waved for Paul Scholes to join the defensive wall and cover an opening. Scholes did not and Henry put the ball through the vacant position.

Howard was the surprise starter ahead of Fabien Barthez who played well in an exhibition against Portugal's Sporting Lisbon Wednesday night and is the favorite to maintain his position in the starting 11. Still, Howard's continued strong efforts will make it interesting to see who manager Alex Ferguson will choose for Saturday's league opener against Bolton Wanderers.

Howard reportedly will receive a $1 million bonus this season on top of his $1.4 million annual salary should he become the Red Devils' starter.

Lewis quickly established himself back at Preston North End, scoring the Lilywhites first goal of the season two minutes into a 2-1 loss to West Ham United. The lead lasted only three minutes with Jermaine Defoe tying the game in the fifth minute and David Connolly winning it for West Ham in the 69th.

Despite solid goalkeeping from Hahnemann, Reading also got off to a somewhat disappointing start, conceding a stoppage-time penalty kick to Ipswich Town's Tommy Miller which gained a 1-1 draw.

The saga of U.S. midfielder and captain Claudio Reyna continues with rumors of a transfer from Sunderland to Fulham. This week, after announcing that a number of its players had agreed to a salary deferral this season, cash-strapped Sunderland, which expects its relegation to the First Division to cost the club $16 million, said talks were underway with Fulham to possibly move Reyna back to the Premier League.

Reyna was held out of Sunderland's final preseason tune up against Nottingham Forest, a sign that a deal could be near.

Fulham is looking to replace midfielder Sean Davis who has formally notified the club he will move to either Middlesbrough or Everton. Fulham manager Chris Coleman has expressed an interest in Reyna, whose transfer reportedly could bring $4 million. Earlier in the summer, both Blackburn Rovers of the Premiership and Bayer Leverkusen of the German Bundelsiga were said to be interested in Reyna if he fully regained fitness after knee surgery in October.

"I'm ready to go back to Sunderland and help them get back to the Premiership," Reyna recently told SoccerTimes. "But I understand their financial situation and the fact that any number of (players) might be sold. So I'll have to wait and see what happens."

Midfielder Bobby Convey is awaiting word on his work permit application which, if issued, will allow him to move from Major League Soccer's D.C. United to Tottenham Hotspur where he will play in the Premier League with American Kasey Keller. Convey is appealing an initial rejection, as Howard did successfully in his transfer to Manchester United, and hope to have an answer in a week or two.

Keller, after playing for the U.S. in last month's Gold Cup, looked sharp in shutting out Sporting Lisbon in a 0-0 exhibition draw yesterday. .

Besides Convey, another new American in British soccer could be Chris Karagionus who is training with Crew Alexandria of the First Division. The 19-year-old, who was born in Belgium and has a Belgium passport, is a U.S. citizen and grew up in Florida. He scored three goals in Crewe's 6-0 preseason win over lower-division Nantwich and impressed coach Dario Gradi. Karagionus is still on trial and has not yet been offered a contract.

Because of next summer's Euro 2004 competition, several European countries, notably Germany and France, started their 2003-2004 seasons two-to-three weeks early. The rest will get underway next weekend, or the weekend after. This means a few Americans have already played two league matches while others have not yet played.

In France, U.S. defender Greg Vanney has already had an interesting two weeks. At the start of the summer, Vanney thought he had been cut loose by Bastia, and he was actively looking for a new club in France or Germany. After the Confederations Cup in France in June, however, Bastia club officials surprised him with a new contract.

In Bastia's season opener in Paris, Vanney and the club's defense turned in a strong performance and surprised Paris St. Germain, the heavily favored home team, with a 0-0 draw. This weekend, the defense could not replicate that effort, failing to hold a 3-1 lead and ending up with another 3-3 draw with newly-pomoted Metz.

It looks like American defender Oguchi Onyewu will not be with Metz this season. Metz won promotion last season by playing strong defense and has assembled a veteran defensive lineup. Onyewu did not impress manager Jean Fernandez in the preseason, so Metz is trying to find him a new home. After a tryout with Hamburg of the German Bundesliga, Onyewu is being given a longer look by Louvière of Belgium where he could remain on loan for the season.

According to the Troyes web site, U.S. World Cup veteran defender David Regis has retired, but other reports have him actively looking for a new team.

Yesterday, Hannover played well for the first half, taking a 3-1 lead into intermission against visiting Bayern Munich. Claudio Pizarro narrowed Bayern's deficit to 3-2 in the 49th minute and after Hannover was reduced to 10 men in the 86th minute with Mohammadou Idrissou's red card, Owen Hargreaves provided the equalizer for Munich with a free kick in stoppage time for the 3-3 draw.

U.S. defender Gregg Berhalter was on the bench when Energie Cottbus fell 3-2 to newly-promoted Eintracht Trier in the opener. Cottbus coach Eduard Geyer promised a shakeup and, yesterday, Berhalter started and made a solid contribution in central defense in a 1-0 decision over Union Berlin.

American defender Cory Gibbs remains the property of St. Pauli, but his status is uncertain with a club that has been demoted twice in the last two season and is now in the third division.

Gibbs drew interest from Eintracht Frankfurt, which balked at the $150,000 transfer fee St. Pauli is asking. He has since drawn interest from Jahn Regensberg of the 2 Bundesliga and now there is talk he could move to Kaiserslautern in the top division.

It is said that Kaiserslautern is choosing between Gibbs and Matthias Örüm from Wacker Burghausen. St. Pauli, which is desperate to get back to the second division, is said to have offered him incentives to stay, and the local media in Hamburg is reporting he will stay put if a good transfer does not come along soon.

Gibbs did not play in St. Pauli's opener, but this week went the distance in a 1-1 draw with Münster.

American Conor Casey, on loan to Karlsruhe from Hannover for the season, has played two decent, if unspectacular matches to start the season. Playing as the target forward, he went 81 minutes in the season opener, a 3-2 loss to FC Nürnberg. He made some decent crosses and held the ball well at times, but missed a diving header from three yards out.

U.S. defender Tony Sanneh did not dress for newly-relegated Nürnberg. He is still fighting to recover from a serious back problem that involved inflamed nerves and infection that kept him off the field for much of the second half of last season.

In the third division, American midfielder Joe Enochs went 90 minutes for Osnabruck which beat LR Ahlen 1-0 on the road. Osnabruck is now coached by former Hamburg coach Frank Pagelsdorf, who called Enochs one of the team's best players.

American Jacob Thomas scored a goal in Eintracht Braunschweig's 3-2 victory over Dynamo Dresden.

Elversberg defeated FC Augsburg 1-0 with American Grover Gibson playing the entire match in the central midfield against his old teammates. Former U.S. international Michael Mason went the distance on the front line and scored the winner in the 70th minute.

Robert Wagman is a SoccerTimes senior correspondent and can be e-mailed at bobwagman@soccertimes.com. Gary Davidson is a SoccerTimes managing editor and can be e-mailed at editor@soccertimes.com.