TIM HOWARD meets MATT TURNER: Legendary US goalkeeper and the current USMNT No 1 discuss World Cup dreams, the genius of Mikel Arteta… and why they both nearly turned their back on America!

Ahead of the United States’ Nations League game against Jamaica tonight, TIM HOWARD speaks to current USMNT No 1 MATT TURNER about his journey and a huge few years for soccer on these shores. Daniel Matthews listened in… 

It turns out that both Matt Turner and Tim Howard had the same Plan B. One that would have altered the bloodline between the sticks of the United States men’s national team. One that would have led them towards their roots but away from home.

Turner’s heritage had always been hazy until he stumbled upon some papers that detailed his great grandmother’ journey from Lithuania to New York. She was fleeing religious persecution during World War II.

So, long before establishing himself as America’s No 1, Turner applied for a Lithuanian passport and then wrote to the country’s FA offering his services.

‘I don’t regret it,’ he insists. ‘If they had called me back I definitely would have gone. It wasn’t that my heart wasn’t into playing for the US… I just didn’t feel like it was really a possibility for me. I never played for any of the youth teams. It wasn’t like I was – at the time – a budding star in MLS.’

As late as 2019, Turner was the No 3 goalkeeper at New England Revolution. Between 2017 and 2019, meanwhile, Lithuania faced both England and Portugal in qualifying for major tournaments.

‘My big plan was: “Bring me in, I’ll play against Portugal, I’ll play against England, I’ll ball out, and then I’ll get to the Premier League that way.’ Foolproof, he thought. ‘But obviously I forgot about the fact that they could potentially just never call me back!’

Turner laughs at the idea now. But Howard, who won 121 caps for the USMNT, plotted a similar path when he fell out of favor under former coach Bruce Arena.

‘Always back yourself, apologize for nothing!’ he tells Turner. ‘At one point he wasn’t picking me. I said: “To hell with this. I’m going to go play for Hungary!’

Howard’s ancestors fled Soviet tanks in the 1950s and, decades later, the goalkeeper told his mother he was turning his back on the United States. ‘I didn’t, obviously.’ And nor did Turner.

Instead? They are now bound by this country’s No 1 jersey. ‘The best US goalkeepers come from New Jersey – that’s a cold, hard fact,’ says Howard. The North Brunswick-native has worn it more than anyone else. Turner, who grew up 90 minutes north in Park Ridge, now has the honor under Gregg Berhalter.

On Thursday in Texas, the US faces Jamaica in the Nations League semi-finals. It is the latest staging post ahead of a huge few years: this summer, America will host Copa America. In 2026, the World Cup comes to North America.

‘It’s an opportunity that very few US soccer players ever get – or any soccer players – to represent their home country, in their home country,’ Howard tells Turner. ‘It’s so special. Have you allowed yourself to even think about it?’

‘I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself,’ Turner insists. But? ‘It’s going to be unlike anything else… we’re gonna blink our eyes and it’ll be here. It’s going to be an absolute dream come true.’

The United States has not hosted soccer’s showpiece since 1994. The USMNT has not gone beyond the quarter finals since 1930 and the current crop is ranked No 13 in the world. Not that any of that will temper expectations.

‘If we didn’t back ourselves to lift a trophy, why are we in this sport? Why are we on this team?’ says Turner.

‘It’s going be hard to compete for something if you don’t truly believe that you can do it.’

The 29-year-old, who joined Nottingham Forest last summer, had a taste of the World Cup as the US reached the last-16 in Qatar.

‘That first game – for yourself and any footballer – it’s life imagined. It’s everything you could ever have hoped and dreamed for,’ Howard says. ‘What did that singular moment mean to you?’

Turner smiles and stares at the ceiling. ‘Honestly, I sometimes get emotional thinking about it.’ The goalkeeper gulps.

‘I didn’t think being a starter was a possibility back in 2020 and I thought: if I get to this World Cup, that’ll be enough. That’ll be my career sorted. I’m good. I’ll be happy. I’ll be at peace.’

Turner started all four games. ‘The feeling when I walked out onto that field…’ he recalls. ‘When the World Cup ended I thought back to that moment, and I thought to myself: “I need to get back there again.” I had that itch.’

Howard can empathize. ‘The more you have it, the more you want it!’ he says and soon Turner’s head in his hands. ‘It’s hard, it’s horrible, Timmy!’ the No 1 laughs.

Howard knows those feelings will pass eventually. ‘You’re inevitably going to get to my age, when you’re so excited to never have to play the game again. Trust me, you’ll get there!’ the 45-year-old says.

Not anytime soon, though. Turner is approaching 30 but he has spent barely half of his life in goal. He was destined for the mound until the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

‘Man, what a summer!’ Turner remembers. ‘I was living the same life that most high school kids live… they’re with their boys all the time, they’re going to parties, drinking beers out in the woods, getting in trouble, running away from the police – The normal stuff, I guess!’

Turner played basketball and soccer. But? ‘I was actually just about to start trying to get recruited for college for baseball,’ he recalls. Then the World Cup changed everything. ‘From there, the players became our heroes,’ Turner says.

‘I’ve rooted for the Yankees. I rooted for the Devils in ice hockey, I’m a Nets fan but the intensity of those games, knowing that they come once only every four years… nothing spoke to me (like the World Cup).’

That team never conquered all, like the USWNT has. But it never polarized the public like Megan Rapinoe and Co have, either.

Instead, in 2010 and 2014, Howard was part of rosters that were stitched together with players from different backgrounds and different corners of the globe. ‘It laid the framework for what we have right now in our locker room,’ Turner says.

‘We want to continue to be the type of team that any person in the United States can look at, pick a player and see a bit of themselves in that in that person… we want people to understand that we’re a melting pot of cultures and backgrounds just like this country is.’

Back in 2010, Turner could flick on the TV and see another kid from New Jersey who dreamed big. But Howard laughs as Turner explains that he fell for goalkeeping primarily because they wore a different color jersey.

‘As much I’ve talked about how I’ve always looked up to, and obviously really respected you, I have to say: you didn’t have the flashiest kit in that World Cup, did you?’ Turner tells Howard.

Instead, the keeper that caught his eye? Fernando Muslera of Uruguay. ‘I was like: “Damn, that kit is sick!’ he remembers.

‘So I went to YouTube and I typed in “goalkeeping”.’ The first video that popped up? ‘An eight-minute clip of Peter Schmeichel saves.’ Turner thought to himself ‘I can do that’ and so he called his friends, dragging them to the local field to test his new theory.

‘I love your story,’ Howard says. ‘Where you’re from, how you started. To me you’re self-made, and when we go through our career you have some kids who had it all and had it handed it to them… and then there are others who – like yourself – started from nothing, had nothing and shouldn’t have been there.’ 

In little over a decade, Turner had climbed to the top of soccer. But no one need tell him – or Howard – about the fragility of life as a goalkeeper.

The 29-year-old joined Forest for $9million and began the season as first choice, only for errors – and the recent arrival of Matz Sels – to consign him to the bench. Turner is now fighting for his place at Forest and with the USMNT.

‘I know that the good times aren’t forever, and I know that the bad times aren’t forever,’ he says. That ‘perspective’ came only after ‘shame and embarrassment’ in 2013, when as a sophomore at Fairfield University, Turner made a calamitous error which went viral and was featured on ESPN.

‘That was my World Cup final, really, in the moment,’ Turner says. ‘It was an important lesson for me to learn – as a man, not just as a goalkeeper.’

Howard, who spent 13 years at Manchester United and Everton, is struck by Turner’s mentality. ‘I made tons of mistakes and I just remember I turned everybody into the enemy. I hated everybody… that was the game I played my head. Is it a dangerous game? A little bit!’ 

Now it is Turner’s time to fight off the threat of Ethan Horvath, Zack Steffen, Drake Callender and Co.

‘Obviously in a perfect world, in in Gregg’s mind, I’m playing week-in, week-out, I’m in good form all the time, and then I’m playing well for the national team all the time. Unfortunately that’s not the reality right now,’ Turner says.

‘But I’ve grown a lot as a goalkeeper in this last year – and also as a person… maybe I don’t have the greatest playing experience resume, but as like a life experience resume, I think I top almost any professional footballer in the world.’

He adds: ‘Gregg understands the situation… we’ll sort out the club situation on the other side. I’ve had some good conversations with (Forest boss) Nuno (Espirito Santo) and they like what they see from me.’

Turner was recently joined at Forest by USMNT teammate Gio Reyna, who signed on loan from Borussia Dortmund. The 21-year-old had a messy feud with Berhalter, which began in Qatar and involved their families and an allegation of domestic violence.

‘I watch him train every day and I see such a smart and gifted player,’ Turner says. ‘I know that he could help our national team a ton… I think it’s a matter of time with him finding a perfect scenario before he really blows up.’

Turner and his young family, meanwhile, have settled in Nottingham after a year at Arsenal, where he was Aaron Ramsdale’s No 2.

‘You played for a coach, Mikel Arteta, who I played with as a teammate for nearly 10 years – he was the captain, he was diligent… a brilliant football mind,’ Howard says.

‘You came out of MLS, what are the lessons and the nuggets you take with you from being in that environment every single day?’

‘Honestly, it was one of the best experiences a footballer can have,’ the goalkeeper says. ‘I think the biggest thing that I took away from it is the details. It sounds so like mundane. You’d be surprised how many times we talked about the same little small things.’ 

Such as how to keep the ball from a throw-in. ‘Stuff that you’d think might be a given,’ he adds. But stuff they were reminded about every day. Howard also leapt in at the deep end when he joined United from Metrostars in 2003.

‘Although I was only there three years… I cherish those moments,’ he says. ‘The lessons that I learned then never went away. There are times when I sit back and think: If I never went to Man United, would I know half of the things I know? And the answer is no. It’s scary.’

‘Right,’ agrees Turner. His experience of Arsenal’s title challenge ‘fostered’ an ‘addiction’ to the Premier League. Only by playing, though, would the goalkeeper discover if he really could ‘hack it’. Forest was deducted four points this week for breaching financial rules, plunging them deeper into a fight at the other end of the table.

‘I’m not in the business of wasting time,’ Turner says. ‘If it doesn’t work out for me here, then I can always move backwards. But when the opportunity presented itself… I had to jump at it.’

Howard cracks a smile. ‘It’s fun talking to you – you sound just like me!’ USA fans will hope that, over these pivotal few years, Turner can play just like Howard, too.