U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard was focal point of D.C. United’s marketing efforts surrounding Saturday’s exhibition match against Everton, but he won’t be playing, Toffees manager David Moyes confirmed this morning at RFK Stadium.
“He won’t play tomorrow because of his long commitments to the U.S.A. national team during the summer months,” Moyes said. “We’ve had to make sure he had some holiday time away with his family. But he will join the team today, and he’ll be at the game tomorrow, and he’ll have his first training session tomorrow.”
Everton is dealing with a few injuries and will also be without notable contributors Mikel Arteta and Marouane Fellaini while Leon Osman and Victor Anichebe are doubtful.
D.C. United head coach Ben Olsen, meanwhile, expects to have nearly two full sides’ worth of players available, including Under-23 player/first-team practice squad member/trialist(?) Seth C’deBaca from Georgetown, who will be on the bench.
“We have plenty of guys,” Olsen said. “We have a week before the next game. If this fell in a week where we had a weeknight game, I’d be concerned. I’d be scrambling a little bit. But we have a week, and 45-60 minutes, a lot of these guys need, and it’s obviously against a high-caliber team that we want to show well against.”
Also among those available to Olsen will be defender Dejan Jakovic, who said he’ll play at least 45 minutes, which will be his first action since getting injured with Canada prior to the Gold Cup back in May.
“We saw what Man U. did to Seattle,” said Jakovic, referencing the Sounders’ 7-0 loss in a friendly on Wednesday. “It didn’t look fun so we want to avoid that.”
Moyes praised the growth of soccer in the U.S. but generalized a bit with this statement: “It’s a little bit razzmatazz for my liking too much. You have a little bit of cheerleaders and all that. It’s not like in Europe. The football people earn their money and go to see the football. That’s what they do. It’s not eat popcorn and have a Coca-Cola. They’re there to watch the football, and they have a passion about it.”
That probably wasn’t what Olsen asked Moyes about when the two had a brief chat on the RFK Stadium pitch, a young coach looking for pointers from one who has gained a reputation for getting results in the Premier League without spending boatloads of cash on expensive signings.
“[Moyes said,] basically, this is a grind,” Olsen said. “The gig is a very tough gig. You have to be committed, and completely ingrained in your team, and there’s always something. There’s always something popping up. It was a little bit of a pep talk from him, and I do appreciate it because I’m always looking to sponge off the guys who’ve been doing this for a long time.”
Moyes joined Tim Cahill and Phil Neville in sounding upbeat about the excruciating heat in Washington, but not defender Sylvain Distin.
“Just the warmup was really difficult,” Distin said. “The session was really hard. I don’t think we run that much, but it’s just impossible, You can’t breathe. You feel like you’ve got no acceleration in your legs. If feel like you move and your body follow you after. It’s mad.”
