‘Didn’t want Tim in the team’ – How USMNT star Ream made manager eat his words en route to becoming a triple centurion at Fulham

The veteran defender was informed back in the summer of 2016 that he was surplus to requirements at Craven Cottage and free to find himself another club. Fast forward to the present and Ream is still in west London seven years later and has just reached the personal milestone of 300 appearances for the Cottagers.

Jokanovic happily concedes that he got a big call wrong, with the Serbian coach telling Fulham’s official website: “I didn’t want Tim in the team. I called him and told him, ‘listen, Tim, you won’t play with me, it’s better for you if you look for another team.’ Day by day he improved. He wanted to show me and explain to me that I was wrong, and show me that he was a good player. He did a good job, and was a really, really important player for the style that we played. And I didn’t have any problem recognising this in front of all the team. I said this guy is an example for all of you, because I didn’t want him here, but he deserved to be skipper of the team by the end. It was a positive example for me. You have to respect his work, how he improved in this period.”

Ream also fell out of favour in the 2020-21 campaign, but once again worked his way back to become club captain at Fulham. He has said of becoming a triple centurion: “For me, personal milestones are great, right? They’re a great achievement but it’s not something where you go to a club thinking, ‘I want to hit this mark.’ You go to a club and want to have an imprint on the place, have an imprint on the team, on the club as a whole, on the fanbase. That’s kind of the way I looked at it. But, at the end of the day, if you do things right, if you’re able to adapt to different styles, different managers, different things that happen, and you stick around long enough, you reach those milestones. It’s not something I thought about in August of 2015 (when signing for Fulham).”

Ream remains an integral part of the Fulham side at 36 years of age and, with 52 caps for the United States to his name, has stated a desire to play on both domestically and internationally through to a home World Cup in 2026.