Former USMNT great Tim Howard will return to soccer in the USL Championship to play for Memphis 901 FC. This man just doesn’t know when to quit.
Howard, who is one of the shared owners of the Memphis club, will play in goal this Saturday for the club’s season opener. The club announced his participation in a hype video on Wednesday (click the tweet to watch).
TURN UP THE VOLUME @TimHowardGK is ready to #DefendMemphis
— Memphis 901 FC (@Memphis901FC) March 4, 2020
Much like Didier Drogba did with Phoenix, Howard will play a season or possibly two and then transition to a front office job. The 40-year-old goalkeeper returns after a brief five-month retirement. He announced in October 2019 that last year's MLS season with the Colorado Rapids would be his last and would be retiring from the sport.
Howard’s Memphis 901 FC is a relatively new club that had its first season in 2019 when it finished 15th out of 18 in the USL Eastern Conference. The club allowed 52 goals in 34 games last season, so perhaps Howard pulled a Thanos and decided to take matters into his own hands.
Or perhaps Howard was tired of getting roasted by TNT’s critics during Champions League games. Either way with the former USMNT star returning to action at the age of 40 he will be one of the oldest players in the sport. He still has major ground to make up on the oldest current player in the world, Kazuyoshi Miura, who turned 53 last month.
Hopefully for Howard he has a more enjoyable last season with Memphis. His final three years as a Rapid were spent dealing with injuries and meddling around the bottom of MLS’s Western Conference.
Will we see a return to peak form and a recreation of 2014 USA-Belgium? Probably not, but at least the guy has a chance to continue playing the sport he loves in a league where he, hopefully, won’t get obliterated.
His first game is in Memphis at AutoZone Park on Saturday against Indy Eleven.
