Late last fall, Tim Ream learned that he was not going to Disney World. More importantly, perhaps, Tim Ream realized he had to tell his three young children that they were not going to Disney World, either. The trip had been timed to coincide with the World Cup, one of the rare stretches when a professional soccer player can actually get a break.
This carefully constructed plan, of course, relied upon the Fulham center back not making the U.S. roster. This seemed like a good bet. Although the 35-year-old was having an excellent season for the newly promoted Cottagers in the English Premier League, he hadn’t appeared on the American squad since September 2021. But Atlanta United star Miles Robinson ruptured his Achilles’, Crystal Palace’s Chris Richards suffered an injury, and, well, goodbye Florida, hello Qatar.
Or maybe not. The only thing more surprising than Ream making the World Cup roster is the fact that he considered turning down the invitation. When U.S. Coach Gregg Berhalter called to offer him a spot, Ream said he wanted to think about it. “I wasn’t totally convinced that they were confident that I could help, that I could be a big part of a successful team,” he recalled. “I wasn’t totally sold on them wanting me there, so I told [Berhalter] that I needed to sleep on it and call him the next day. I did, with a few questions of my own. And any concern I had was, I wouldn’t say thrown out the window, but it was eased.”
Pause for a beat and picture this scenario: A call comes offering to make any soccer player’s dream come true, and instead of answering immediately in the affirmative, the player asks to sleep on the decision. No one would do this. Ream, always calm, always collected, did.
“I wanted everything laid out, so that I could make my own informed decision and decide whether it was more important for me to go or if it was more important for me to take the break, take the rest and spend time with my family,” he said.
Eventually, he got on a plane to the Middle East — his wife and kids came, too, trading the Florida sun for soccer’s biggest stage — and played all 409 minutes as the Americans reached the round of 16. The performance came amid a breakout year for Ream, as much as a player well into the second decade of his career can have a breakout season.
Ream’s Premier League season would eventually end early after he fractured his arm during a match against Manchester City in April. Ream and Fulham begin anew Saturday, when the club opens its Premier League campaign against Everton. And now — after that World Cup effort in Qatar, after Ream’s strong 2022-23 season — perhaps he was just finally getting appreciated for what he has always done: prevent problems on the field.
“Guys like Tim Ream don’t get noticed because they always are breaking things down before it even gets to them,” said Dan Donigan, who coached the center back during his four-year career at St. Louis University. “They’re not having to make that last-second slide tackle or that last-ditch effort to make a crazy tackle. They play the game before it gets to them, and it does go unnoticed a lot.”
Here’s how former U.S. midfielder and Major League Soccer stalwart Dax McCarty described Ream, a teammate on the New York Red Bulls in 2011: “He’s not the biggest, he’s not the fastest, and he’s not the strongest guy that’s on the field. But Tim plays with his brain, so he sees things that are happening two or three plays ahead. He never puts themselves in a bad position.”
Later in the same conversation, McCarty recalled his initial recollections of playing with the 2010 second-round draft pick. “Although we’re actually the same age, I had been a pro for five or six years longer than him,” he said. “But when you watched him play, you were like: ‘Man, this guy plays with the ease, the confidence and the composure of a 10-year veteran. There’s no way he’s a second-year player.’ He seemed mature beyond his years.”
Schooled at Scott Gallagher’s famous St. Louis soccer club, he has always been thoughtful, good on the ball and able to connect passes. Never sexy, always solid.
No one expected much of Ream when the Red Bulls drafted him with the 18th pick of the 2010 draft. Second-round picks are lucky to make the senior team roster, much less play. But Ream impressed Coach Hans Backe, who inserted his new charge into the starting lineup. Ream started 30 games in 2010 and 28 the next season — missing six in 2011 mostly because of international duty — then transferred to England’s Bolton at the beginning of 2012.
He spent 3½ mostly successful seasons with the club based in Horwich, northwest of Manchester, before moving to Fulham in August 2015. The Cottagers are a club that has yo-yoed between the Premier League and the Championship in recent seasons: mired in the second division from 2014 to 2018, promoted in 2018, relegated in 2019, promoted, then relegated the following two seasons and promoted again in 2022.
Last season, Fulham finished 10th, well above any relegation danger. While the Cottagers faded at the end of the campaign, the squad spent much of it challenging for a Europa League spot, awarded to clubs finishing fifth through seventh in the Premier League. Given the stratospheric wealth of the league’s biggest and richest clubs, finishing at the far end of the top half of the table is about all Fulham can expect.
A key to success is finding, cultivating and keeping underappreciated gems such as Ream. His strong play was a key part of Fulham’s impressive 2022-23 campaign, and the man with more active caps for the London club than any other player will be needed this year, too.
At 35, well past the traditional prime of a soccer player’s career, he keeps getting better. Judging center backs can be difficult, but sometimes the easiest metric is the best. “The simplest approach is how often they play,” said Ryan O’Hanlon, author of the soccer analytics book “Net Gains.” “Last year, Tim Ream played 99.9 percent of minutes for Fulham when he was available. He’s the most ever-present outfield player.”
Opponents noticed Ream, too. After a match against Manchester City, Manager Pep Guardiola told the center back he’d be playing for the super club if he was 24 rather than 34. Ream responded that he was actually 35. He credits his strong campaign to that very experience, to getting more reps and seeing more plays. “I feel like I’m more efficient in the way I read the game and in the way I move,” he said. “I don’t have to think I’m just there. There’s no wasted movement, wasted thought or wasted energy on things that are out of your control.”
And Ream isn’t going anywhere. In December 2022, he signed a contract extension that will keep him at Fulham until at least the summer of 2024.
In the lead-up to the World Cup, 24-year-old American captain Tyler Adams, one of the next generation vanguard along with Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Gio Reyna, jokingly referred to Ream as “grandpa.” Asked about the comment, Ream calmly brushed it off, adding a little dagger of his own. “I don’t take it as a slight or a negative because I’m running around with these guys who are 21, 22 or 23 years old and still keeping up,” he said. “We’ll see where they’re at at 35 years old, and then we’ll tell them to come talk to me and see how they’re feeling.”
Ream thinks he still has more to give. He feels good and strong and ready to continue quietly starring for club and country. When the whistle blows, he’ll be in the middle of the back line, putting out small fires before they turn into goal-conceding conflagrations for as long as he can to play. For 90 minutes, a simple task: keep the ball out of the net. “I don’t want that to end anytime soon,” he said.
