Tim Ream is looking at you, puzzled. He\u2019s a bit disappointed, really. You\u2019d let on that you knew way more about one of his favorite hobbies than you actually did and are being politely but appropriately scolded for it.<\/p>\n
Read more Wine sips + snacky bites are coming to a Plaza Midwood hotspot.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cNin-JAH<\/i>-go,\u201d he repeats, with emphases distinguishing each syllable.<\/p>\n Still, nothing.<\/p>\n How do you spell it?<\/i><\/p>\n He sighs and surrenders his hope.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s spelled like Ninja-Go,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n You quickly type the letters out and crush through Google images on your iPhone and pray something looks familiar. You show him your screen, which is exhausted to full brightness under the May North Carolina sun. He grabs it and squints and scrolls a bit. He eventually lands on one of the most ornate LEGO sets the company offers<\/a> \u2014 a village complete with multiple castles and cobblestone structures and villagers. It costs $499.<\/p>\n It took him and his kids \u201cforever to do this one,\u201d he says. It\u2019s one of the surviving 20 or so structures that reside in his home in Charlotte that haven\u2019t been broken or bent or bruised by one of his six dogs or three young children. Ream loves this stuff, he says, unironically and unapologetically.<\/p>\n You wonder if there\u2019s a link worth exploring here. You wonder if the Charlotte FC starting defender and soon-to-be-repeat U.S. Men\u2019s National Team captain<\/a> in this summer\u2019s World Cup loves LEGO specifically because it aligns with his brain\u2019s wiring. A person assembles LEGO, after all, one piece at a time, clinically. There are rules to follow, a mind to keep quiet even if a boisterous house swirls around you. A certain amount of discipline is required. So is a determination to see things through. Creativity can be useful, yes, but it\u2019s secondary, and honestly overrated. You can even build it all without knowing what awaits at the end; that whole visualization practice is overrated, too.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s definitely something there,\u201d Ream says of the connection between his career and LEGO not-quite-obsession. Take it from someone who began his Major League Soccer career in 2010, back when the MLS SuperDraft was the primary way teams acquired talent \u2014 back when there were 16 MLS clubs instead of today\u2019s 30, back before the generational changes that now reign over today\u2019s American pro soccer, the one the 38-year-old finds himself in now.<\/p>\n The man doesn\u2019t even visualize weeks in advance. Barely even days in advance. The U.S. Men\u2019s National Team is playing in a send-off exhibition match against Senegal in Bank of America Stadium<\/a> on Sunday \u2014 his home turf in more ways than one. And when he\u2019s asked on a Tuesday in May with the send-off game still weeks away if he\u2019s considered how that send-off might feel and sound, Ream shrugs. He offers, instead, a day-by-day, piece-by-piece refrain: \u201cNo,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a game tomorrow night.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, though, ask him enough times, and he\u2019ll politely allow you into his thought process \u2014 a sliver into how he looks at the next phase of his life.<\/p>\n Start with something simple. Like: Is this your last World Cup?<\/i><\/p>\n He laughs.<\/p>\n \u201cOh yeah, absolutely,\u201d the 6-foot-1, 175-pound defender tells The Charlotte Observer. \u201cThere\u2019s no bone or brain cell in my body that says I will play in another World Cup. It\u2019s just not going to happen. That\u2019s been a big driver for me now. This is my last one, and to have it be the biggest one in the history of the game \u2014 in the history of the World Cup \u2014 and to have it be on home soil? Hosting? Everything that I\u2019ve done in the last 3\u00bd years since 2022 has been for this World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n Then pose a tougher question. Like: Have you contemplated retirement?<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cNot really, that\u2019s hard to say,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, people have asked me so many times, \u2018What are you going to do after?\u2019 I\u2019m literally just focused on right now. I\u2019m literally focused on what am I doing every single day to put myself in the best possible position to put myself on that squad that goes to the World Cup. And then what happens after? I have no idea.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll think about that after. Whether that\u2019s playing another year. Playing another two years. I don\u2019t know. I think it\u2019s one of those where you probably have to see how you\u2019re feeling physically and mentally in the next six months to a year after the World Cup finishes. And then you make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n You see what he means.<\/p>\n \u201cAs professionals, when you know, you know,\u201d Ream adds. \u201cAnd right now, how can you know when you have the biggest sport event ever right on your doorstep? It\u2019s impossible to know.\u201d<\/p>\n Then again, he has dwelled in the unknown before.<\/p>\n The moment that Ream often goes back to when discussing the unknown is a day in 2022. It\u2019s the day, actually, that he was offered a spot on his first World Cup roster.<\/p>\n But to understand that day, consider where Ream had been.<\/p>\n Ream was born and raised in St. Louis. He has love for North St. Louis County, where he was born; and St. Charles, where he grew up; and toasted ravioli<\/a>, a regional delicacy. He grew up as the eldest of four sons and one daughter. All were athletes. Dad was an athlete, too; he worked in IT, but in a previous life, he played soccer at a small local college in Missouri and later coached as an assistant at Washington University.<\/p>\n Ream gravitated to soccer early, as did everyone else who shared his last name. That meant playing club ball out of season and high school ball in-season. That meant taking a scholarship to play at Saint Louis University<\/a>, where he embarked on the only path toward professional soccer back then \u2014 training and playing your heart out and doing \u201ceverything you possibly can to get drafted.\u201d (If you couldn\u2019t tell, Ream has a uniquely authoritative view on how much life in American professional soccer has changed.)<\/p>\n Read more DNA ties Charlotte man to violent 2024 home invasion using zip ties, NC sheriff says<\/a><\/p>\n Ream took college classes two summers in a row and graduated a semester early to make him more compelling to MLS teams. He traveled back and forth to Chicago in the Saint Louis offseason to take part in what used to be MLS\u2019 \u201cPremier Development League.\u201d<\/a> He worked at a shop called Soccer Master for spending money. In college, too, is where he met his future wife, Kristen, a tidy-on-the-ball Saint Louis women\u2019s soccer team midfielder who didn\u2019t mind Ream\u2019s \u201cactually quite boring\u201d existence \u2014 those are Tim\u2019s words. She instead walked alongside him, understanding his steps and where he hoped they\u2019d lead.<\/p>\n Ream was eventually taken in the second round of the 2010 MLS SuperDraft by the New York Red Bulls. In 2012, he was transferred to Bolton Wanderers, an English Premier League club, and stayed there for three years. In 2015, he joined Fulham, and he stayed there for 10 seasons.<\/p>\n All the while, he worked in different capacities with the U.S. men\u2019s national team. And that\u2019s where the uncertainty in Ream\u2019s life lay. He long had dreams of playing for the U.S. Men\u2019s National Team during a World Cup. He wasn\u2019t on the team\u2019s radar in 2010. He was a longshot in 2014. But 2018 came around, he was playing his best soccer in the prime of his career, and a call never came.<\/p>\n \u201c2018, not getting the call, that was tough,\u201d he says now.<\/p>\n Life went on. So did his soccer career, day by day, piece by piece. He played and played and won and won. Eventually, in 2022, at 35 years old, the anchor on the Fulham defense received a call from U.S. head coach Gregg Berhalter<\/a>. He picked up. And said something no one expected.<\/p>\n \u201cI told the coach that I had to actually sleep on it,\u201d Ream says. \u201cThey had left me out for over a year. I hadn\u2019t been involved with the team, in a camp, for over a year leading up to the 2022 World Cup. So when he called, I was like, \u2018Why now? Why all of a sudden?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He continues: \u201cI know there were injuries. But he\u2019d already said, there were some things said in the media that I was not really what they were looking for, or didn\u2019t know if I could do what they were asking. And I hung up, and I said, \u2018I\u2019m going to go, and I\u2019m going to play every single game.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I did. I think that\u2019s the proudest thing for me. You finally get there, you finally reach a dream, and you get to go and be a big part of it. Not just someone who\u2019s there, who\u2019s a bystander, and who just watches things happen. Obviously everybody is a part of it, but to go out there and be there on the biggest stage is something that I\u2019ll always remember and take with me, and obviously it\u2019s the biggest goal that I\u2019ve ever been able to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n Ream now has four World Cup starts to his name. He\u2019s played every minute in each of those starts. He\u2019s still close, if not right there, at the top of his game.<\/p>\n He transferred to Charlotte FC in 2024 and has been a mainstay on the defense since. CLTFC is sixth in the Eastern Conference table with six wins, six losses and three draws this season. Last season the team finished fourth in the East in its fourth season of existence \u2014 the squad\u2019s best result<\/a>. Ream was a critical part of that, too.<\/p>\n Now, though, there\u2019s very little on Ream\u2019s mind besides the World Cup. Nothing much, of course, his wife and children: Aidan (12), Theo (10) and Ilya (7). And besides his six dogs: Tate and Blossom and Icky and Zoey and Max and Lait. And fishing, maybe. And his passion for building \u201cmasterpieces\u201d out of nothing with LEGO.<\/p>\n Oh, and \u2026 LeBron James?<\/p>\n It\u2019s the end of our interview on that boiling hot Tuesday in May, and right after getting grilled about LEGO, you ask him if he read what James said after the Los Angeles Lakers were eliminated<\/a> from the NBA playoffs. Ream had. He had an opinion, too.<\/p>\n \u201cHe hasn\u2019t lost enough in a short enough amount of time to just call it a day,\u201d Ream says. \u201cI think when that happens \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n He trails off for a moment before finishing his thought, about how the games aren\u2019t the problem. It\u2019s the recovery between them that grows more and more difficult \u2014 that the hardest parts are things we don\u2019t see, and don\u2019t consider.<\/p>\n