Tim Howard would take the same route to work every weekend. He can still map out his 35-minute ride to Everton’s training facility; he wouldn’t dare discover the cost of veering off course. ‘I didn't ever risk finding out,’ Howard recalls. ‘It would throw me off completely.’
That routine was one of many rituals he developed during a Hall-of-Fame career that catapulted Howard from a big kid in New Jersey to a giant of American sports - to this day, no goalkeeper has made more saves in a World Cup game.
But Howard had also learned, while still a young boy, how lives can turn on wrong turns or dodgy directions.