GOAL sat with the USMNT defender to talk about MLS, his career, and the unknown of playing for Mauricio Pochettino
It was Christmas time in the Ream household and, for the first time in a decade, he was able to celebrate. For the entirety of his three children's lives, Tim Ream's mind was at least partially elsewhere. There was always a game on the horizon and – always the professional – that was constantly in the back of his mind.
Such is life when you play at the top level of English soccer. Boxing Day is a holiday of its own and, for those scheduled to play on it, Christmas Day is often spent preparing, not celebrating.
Not in 2023, though. Ream was dealing with an injury, leaving him out of the Fulham squad. While nobody looks to be injured, there was a bit of an upside – in a way, it was freeing. It also ultimately led to him making one of the biggest decisions of his playing career and, most likely, the penultimate decision he'll have to make when it comes to his club career.
"I could have stayed at Fulham. I could have played, but spending Christmas with the kids for the first time in their life, it was such a big eye-opener," Ream said. "I think that was probably the exact point where it was like, 'You know what? I think it's we need to start exploring options and where we can go'."
Ream ultimately landed in Charlotte, joining Charlotte FC as the team's biggest signing yet. With the club in its third year of existence, Ream became the team's first U.S. men's national team star, adding a legitimate veteran to the backline. He's helping spearhead the team's playoff push, bringing the experienced presence that Charlotte FC was crying out for.
It's a role he's lived in for some time with the USMNT. Since his shock inclusion in the 2022 World Cup squad, Ream has been the USMNT's elder statesman. At 35, he was one of only two outfield players over the age of 30 in Qatar and, was five years older than the second oldest, Aaron Long.
In the two years since the World Cup, he's remained an outspoken leader of this team and an undeniable force for what still is a young group. The USMNT has leaned on that presence to help navigate the rough waters that ultimately led to a new era under Mauricio Pochettino.
Set to turn 37 on Saturday, Ream knows as well as anyone that his place in that new era is far from guaranteed. After all, it wasn't under Gregg Berhalter, just as it wasn't under Bruce Arena or Jurgen Klinsmann, either. For the entirety of his career, Ream has felt a need to prove himself and, as his career winds down, he's willing to admit the obvious: there isn't much left to prove.
How long can he hold on? Can he maintain his form through the World Cup? And if not, can he help lay the foundation for a group determined to make history in 2026? This is the final phase of Ream's USMNT career, but what will it look like?
"I want to continue to play," Ream said, "but I also know, and I'm not stupid, I'm gonna be 37 years old this week. The World Cup is a year and a half away. If I'm there, amazing. If I'm not, there's not a whole lot that I can complain about, right? There's not a whole lot that I can sit there and feel hard done by because I've lived it. I've played in the World Cup. I've been with this program for 14 years."
For this week's Wednesday Convo, GOAL sat down with Ream to discuss his USMNT career, his expectations after being named to Pochettino's first U.S. squad, his major move to MLS and why he'll never be one to "cliche" away from the hard conversations.
GettyHow did you know it was time to leave Fulham and come back to the U.S.?
"I obviously still had a year left and I felt, and have maintained for a long time, that I would love to stay over there (in England) until I finish playing. Even this year, I felt like I could have stayed, contributed and been a part of a successful team. I'm coming up on 37 this week and you know you're not going to play forever, but you also know that you have to make sure that you set yourself up and your family up and your kids up to have a good transition once playing is finished.
"Now I feel like I still have a couple of years left and I feel good physically. I feel good mentally. It really just became, 'OK, well, if we leave it longer, it's going to be really, really tough on the kids.'
"My wife's parents are retired. My oldest is 10, and they've missed out on a lot with him. I also have an eight-year-old and a six-year-old, so how do we get closer without going all the way back? We wanted to be somewhere different. We've been away from St. Louis for so long. It's our hometown and where we grew up but we're different people now, so St. Louis is not somewhere we thought we would end up long-term. Charlotte came about and it seemed like the perfect place for our family and our kids to grow up.
"It's crazy coming from London, where it takes you 45 minutes to an hour-and-a-half to go five or 10 miles. Now, you can get anywhere. We drove 45 minutes and went to a farm and then went swimming in a quarry, and my kids were like, 'This is the best place ever!' It's those types of things that have been really cool."
AdvertisementImagnWhat are weekend mornings for you like now? Do you follow Fulham from afar or is that family time?
"This is going to sound really strange to people, but I don't watch [Fulham]. It's not even that I can't. I follow along and see social media and keep up with it that way. I'm so in the thick of it on Saturday mornings. I'm just making sure our Saturday mornings are fairly normal for the kids because they have their own activities that they're involved in. We don't sit down and watch it, and then from that point on, from lunch onwards, it's fully focused on getting ready for my own game.
"Home is home. It's not work. I don't want to bring that intensity, that focus, and that stress into the home for the kids, but my oldest is already like, 'Dad, when you play tonight, don't do this. Don't get sent'. I'm like, 'Dude, you're 10 years old, just enjoy the game.' He's already thinking about his dad playing in the game and making sure that I don't get beat and turned and spun and put on my butt. But, yeah, we try to keep it separate."
IMAGNMLS has changed a lot since you were last in the league and American players are moving abroad younger than ever before. What's the league like now?
"When you look at the guys who were leaving 10 to 12 years ago, it was guys who were fully established, fully ingrained with the national team, right? And then they were moving. Now, you're getting guys who are able to move because they're solid contributing pieces on their teams and then they're getting the opportunity to come in with a national team.
"I think from that standpoint, yeah, you had a lot of names back then and a lot of good players, but you didn't have the quality across the board. Now you have teams looking at not just guys who are playing for their national team; you're having teams from Europe look at squad players or starters from every team and say, 'We can work with this guy'. It's impressive to see them making that jump because guys can do it.
"I maintain that, when I went over there, there are so many guys in this league who could do it with if given the chance. I think it's a really good sign of development, but I think it's also a good sign of the mentality of the players that are in the league. They want to do it."
GettyYou've never been afraid to put your hand up and acknowledge when things need to be better. You did it this summer after the Copa America and after your mistake against Canada. How do you find that confidence and how important is that honesty?
"I think it's important to have your own analysis and understanding and to acknowledge that I was not good today. I'm letting you know that I'm not burying my head in the sand. I'm not hiding, but I'm here to be at the front of it. It's something that I think, as players, you're not really taught.
"There are bad things that happen, and you need to be able to handle those. You can't just sit there and say, 'OK, I'm only going to be here when the good times are rolling'. It just doesn't work like that. Life doesn't work like that.
"I think you see with all the players now, they're afraid to say what they feel or say what they think because of what social media is, so you just get cliche after cliche after cliche. Listen, I can cliche all day long if I want to, no problem. I've got English ones and ones from here in the States. You can give cliches, but you can also give meaningful answers and be upfront and honest with yourself and with others. I think that goes a lot further with people than just giving a robot answer and then moving on."