U.S. Keeper in England Shuts Out Pain

August 15, 2007

Soccer

By JACK BELL

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Marcus Hahnemann has had a relatively good summer for a player who had more than a dozen pins and two plates inserted into his right hand during an operation.

Still, Hahnemann, a 35-year-old American goalkeeper for Reading of the English Premier League, was able to spend quality time floating down the Yakima River in Washington State, learning to fly-cast with his left hand.

“For three or four years, all I’ve wanted to do in the summer is fish and play golf,” Hahnemann, who was on the United States team for the World Cup last summer, said Monday in a telephone interview from England. “Fly-casting left-handed wasn’t easy.”

Hahnemann’s fitness was a question when he returned to preseason training June 26, and the doubts remained leading up to the season opener Sunday at Manchester United, the defending Premier League champion. Hahnemann was tested early, and often, but he was a bulwark between the posts as Reading, which played the final 18 minutes with 10 men, withstood withering pressure to earn a point in a 0-0 draw.

“We wanted to get something from the game,” he said. “Almost anybody who goes to Man U. is happy to come away with a point, especially a clean sheet. It was an unbelievable result.”

Hahnemann broke his right hand during the final game of last season, on May 13, when Blackburn’s Nonda kicked his hand while trying to beat him to a low cross. After having surgery in Colorado, Hahnemann returned to Reading and participated in every aspect of goalkeeper training, except facing shots.

“My hand wouldn’t take it,” he said.

Now in his eighth year in England, Hahnemann last season helped Reading, which had been promoted to the top level of English soccer for the first time in club history, finish in eighth place, 1 point from securing a spot in the UEFA Cup. He recorded 22 shutouts in 38 league games and faced the most shots of any goalkeeper in the league.

“Last season, I think we did surprise ourselves,” Hahnemann said. “We all thought that our first goal was just to stay up in the Prem. But to finish eighth was truly amazing. This season, our goal is to stay in the top 10. It is a question of depth. Injuries to a squad our size would kill us. The bottom line is that we spent only $2 million on players all summer. Compare that with a club like Sunderland, which spent $25-$30 million.”

Sunderland, under the direction of the former Manchester United star Roy Keane, gained promotion to the Premier League for this season.

Hahnemann is a fan of Manchester United (“Edwin and I are good friends,” he said, referring to the team’s starting goalkeeper, Edwin van der Saar). He said what separated the elite from the rest was depth.

“You don’t realize it once the game starts, because you’re concentrating so hard, but when I saw the highlights, the camera panned to the stands and it was unbelievable who Man U. had sitting up there,” he said. “Players like Tévez, Ole Gunnar, Neville and like five more. I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, they are so deep.’ That’s the thing — it’s not just the 11 guys on the field, they have an unbelievable collection of world-class players behind them.” He was referring to Carlos Tévez, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Gary Neville.

On Sunday, Hahnemann reacted on instinct when Wayne Rooney broke in alone, heading for the goal like a runaway freight train.

“I had to stick my right hand out there unprotected,” Hahnemann said. “I cringed a bit, but it was O.K. Then in a scramble in front of the goal in the second half, I got kicked by one of my teammates. But it was the left hand.”

(Later in the game, Rooney broke his left foot when he was stepped on by Reading defender Michael DuBerry. He is expected to miss about six weeks.)

United States

Coach Bob Bradley of the men’s national team yesterday picked the 19 players who will travel to Sweden for an international friendly in Göteborg next Wednesday.

Marcus Hahnemann is back with the national team after missing two summer tournaments — the Concacaf Gold Cup and Copa América — while he recuperated from surgery on his right hand. Also returning from injuries are Bobby Convey (knee), Josh Wolff (groin) and Steve Cherundolo (back). With the game in Europe during the Major League Soccer season, Bradley picked only three M.L.S. players — Landon Donovan, Pablo Mastroeni and Jonathan Bornstein.

The United States is 10-3-1 under Bradley.

¶The women’s national team, fresh from a 6-1 victory over New Zealand last Sunday in Chicago, is off until Saturday, when it will return to training in Los Angeles. The team will play its final domestic exhibition, against Finland on Aug. 25, before leaving for the Women’s World Cup in China and its first-round opener against North Korea on Sept. 11.

¶The men’s under-17 national team arrived in South Korea yesterday for the FIFA Under-17 World Cup. The American team is in a first round group with Tajikistan (Monday, 6:45 a.m.), Tunisia (Aug. 23, 3:45 a.m.) and Belgium (Aug. 26, 2:45 a.m.). All of the team’s first-round games will be telecast live on ESPNU.

Notes

¶Dunord.blogspot.com has thumbnail reports on 29 Americans who played for clubs in Europe last weekend.

¶Freddy Adu, 18, made his European debut yesterday in Benfica’s 2-1 victory over F.C. Copenhagen in a European Champions League qualifying match in Lisbon. Adu entered the match with about 10 minutes left in the first half. The return match in the home-and-away total-goals series will be played Aug. 28 in Denmark.

¶The inaugural SuperLiga tournament is down to the semifinals. Pachuca, the reigning champion of the Mexican league, played the Houston Dynamo of M.L.S. last night in Texas. The Los Angeles Galaxy, which was in the middle of a four-game, 13-day East Coast trip, will play host to D.C. United tonight in the other semifinal.

¶In M.L.S., injury-depleted Toronto F.C. has gone 462 minutes (five games, and 12 minutes) without scoring a goal. The league record is 557 minutes, set by Real Salt Lake, another expansion team, in 2005. Toronto began the season with a 384-minute goalless streak. Toronto has scored 18 goals in 20 games. ... The Red Bulls have sold more than 55,000 tickets for Saturday’s game against the Los Angeles Galaxy, even though it remains uncertain if the injured David Beckham will play. In addition to the artificial turf at Giants Stadium, a surface Beckham is known to dislike, he and the Galaxy will be greeted by football lines on the turf.

PLAYER With his controversial transfer finally behind him, the Argentine striker Carlos Tévez is set to make his debut for Manchester United in today’s English Premier League match at Portsmouth. Tévez, 23, is likely to start in place of Wayne Rooney, 21, who broke his left foot in Sunday’s season opener against Reading.

CLUB Real Madrid, the defending champion in La Liga, has added two young Dutch midfielders: Wesley Sneijder, 23, and Royston Drenthe, 20. The team has signed six new players for nearly $96 million in transfer fees during the off-season.