So now has nothing to say?
Maybe the potty mouth of America’s goalkeeper is full of soap.
With the same mouth used to kiss his mother, Howard used foul language on a heckler during the Rapids’ 3-1 loss April 9 at Kansas City. Howard was suspended Friday, for both his abusive language directed at the crowd and a postgame altercation with a spectator. But he ain’t talking about it, and Colorado management is stubbornly protecting Howard, as if a 38-year-old goalie with more than 100 appearances for the U.S. men’s national team is a snot-nosed child incapable of saying he messed up.
Itap a bad look for Howard and the Rapids, languishing in last place, as well as failing Public Relations 101.
But know whatap worse?
The ill-founded belief itap OK to take the snark we feel safe spouting on social media to a sports arena, thinking the price of a ticket grants the right to spew abuse at athletes. But that’s a rant for another day.
What the troubling issue here, and maybe one reason Howard has remained silent, is that for all the amazing growth of MLS, the top soccer league in America sometimes acts like the same naïve, bush-league game of kickball it was 20 years ago.
“The reason why Tim Howard is great in goal, and he’s the best goalkeeper in the history of United States soccer, is because he’s operating at a level that is borderline crazy,” Rapids coach said Tuesday. “He’s operating in a place where most people don’t even dare go, because itap scary to go there.”
Yet MLS allows fans to mingle with opposing players after a defeat? Mastroeni accused Kansas City of lax security that allowed unruly fans to instigate the postgame confrontation for which Howard is being blamed.
“We have to do a better job of making sure we protect the players that are growing the game. … I think there was a security issue there. After the game, there are fans in this tunnel where players are walking,” Mastroeni said.
“Itap like me walking a foot away from an angry fan who has been drinking all game long and is saying, ‘Howard, you suck!’ What do you say? What do you do? Who in his right mind says ‘Thank you’ or starts meditating his way to the locker room?”
I’m not here to defend Howard for losing his cool, although he could say worse and get elected president of the United States. News flash: The language of sports is peppered with four-letter words, and at least one uttered to the crowd by Howard while he played at Kansas City was captured on a cellphone video, because thatap our idea of fun in a gotcha society.
In more innocent days, MLS was a league that encouraged bringing “the fan experience close to these players, with autographs and all that stuff,” Mastroeni said. “But, overnight, we’ve gone from that league to a league where we have to protect these guys. We’re a different league than we were. We’ve got to keep the fans away a little bit more. … There’s more fans, there’s angrier fans and there’s more passionate fans. So there’s got to be a buffer between the player and the fans.”
