Ask me about Clint Dempsey

Thank you it's been real

Clint Dempsey used five words to announce his retirement from the soccer world. Dempsey's place in the history of American soccer has yet to be decided, but if you look at the numbers, his legacy is extremely underrated: best marker in the history of United States National team along with Landon Donovan, best American marker in the Premier League and, above all, one of the most talented and costant players of American soccer. But there's more. Bruce Arena - historic national team coach - during an interview about Clint, said "We have an expression for some players – for Clint, we continually said, ‘He tries shit.’" Meaning that Dempsey tried and did so many different things throughout his carrer, from a lob against Juventus to a rap song. His story is important because it's an exception for the American soccer, which explains why soccer has never really taken off from 2000 to now: maybe if there were more Dempsey and less Freddy Adu, we would have seen a star-spangled uniform in Russia last summer. 

The exception that proves the rule 

In 2013 an economy professor at the University of Chicago carried out a research that compared the area of origin and average income of the best players of NBA, NFL and the American soccer team. The results were quite striking. The vast majority of American soccer players had a very different background from their football and basket colleagues: they were all white, with a high-income and coming from wealthy neighborhoods.

Even though Clint Dempsey is white, he doesn’t belong to any of these categories. He was born and raised in trailer park in Nacogdoches, a small town in the middle of nowhere in Texas. His family has always had financial problems and Clint started playing soccer on those dusty Texas pitches populated by Mexican and latin immigrants. When he was around 11 years old, his parents couldn’t afford the enrolment to the soccer school anymore, also considering the fact that his sister Jennifer was starting to be a nationally ranked tennis player and was beginning to see the chance of actually becoming a pro. The families of Clint’s teammates kept paying for his soccer team enrolment, but the turning-point was Jennifer’s death at 16 for a brain aneurysm. This tragic event allowed the family to invest everything on Clint and it’s the main reason why he became a pro soccer player. It must be a complex and hard pain to live with, which Clint processed by dedicating every goal of his carrer to his sister Jennifer by poiting the fingers to the sky.

Dempsey became a pro thanks to the South Carolina Furman University, where he got a scholarship to play in the school team. Clint’s talent reflected his childish soccer training: amazing shots and that space created out of nowhere derived from those Texan fields and Mexican education. At the same time, his work ethics and disposition to sacrifice are part of his humble beginnings. 

The main way to become a pro soccer player in the USA is inevitably going to Ivy League collages, that’s why it's harder to find talents ‘coming from the bottom’, as it happens in South America and Europe. Clint Dempsey was the exception to the rule of the American system, which failed in creating young talents and still hopes in the coming of the Messiah (Fredy Adu, Christian Pulisic) and doesn’t work on his potential.

American Pastoral

There’s one goal more important than the others in Clint Dempsey’s carrer. He scores it with the Fulham jersey in the 2009-10 season in Europe League against the post-calciopoli scandal Juventus, trained by Ferrara first and Zaccheroni later. We’re in the eight finals and Fulham has to turn around the 3-1 of the first leg, scored by Legrottaglie, Zebina and Trezeguet. After the initial advantage scored once again by the French forward, Fulham manages to score three goals, also thanks to the expulsion of Fabio Cannavaro. At minute ’83, Dempsey receives the ball at the edge of the area back to the door, Chiellini doesn’t press him and lets him have the space to turn. Clint barely looks at the door and throws a light lob that arrives at the opposite crossing, with the poor Chimenti standing still looking at this incredible technical gesture. That goal spectacularly eliminated Juventus from the championship and brought the London team forward, stopped only by the Atletico Madrid in the finals.

The technical gesture is worthy of the best speedy-backs, from Totti to Ronaldihno, but above all Dempsey’s goal changed forever the perception of American players in Europe. The fact that it was an American player scoring in the homeland of football against the Juventus giants convinced many Europeans that Americans were able to play soccer. Dempsey was the first American player (and maybe the only one) to be considered a good player, without catalyzing anxieties and expectations on him. 

Nevertheless he never managed to become the face of American soccer. Many hoped to see someone more handsome, saleable and American and ignored his 72 goals in 236 matches in Premier League and 57 goals in 141 matches in the National team. At Fulham he was elected best player of the year twice, before his moving to Tottenham. On its part, Clint tried his best: for the 2006 FIFA World Cup he released a rap song sponsored by Nike dedicated to his late sister Jennifer, nothing memorable though. 

The failed qualification of USA at the last FIFA World Cup marked the end of Dempsey’s international career, who however belonged to a solid soccer generation which never won anything, but avoided poor shows like the current team. With him in the USA team there were also Landon Donovan, Brain McBride – the one of the elbow against De Rossi – and Tim Howard. When he came back to the MLS after two years at Tottenham, he was welcomed by Seattle Sounders and by the League as the most important purchased since David Beckham. Nevertheless, he never reached the status of superstar the American soccer needed so badly.

Now the Soccer is missing one of his best representatives of the last few years, whose story is a lesson on the future of the National team: more Dempsey, less Adu.