Why Clint Dempsey Can’t Be One of a Kind

Reflecting on Deuce on the anniversary of U.S. Soccer’s darkest hour

In some cases, you can remember the exact moment you realized a player was a class above the rest. One of the most forgettable U.S. Men’s National Team matches in recent years was my epiphany of Clint Dempsey’s true talent: The third place match in the 2015 Gold Cup that we lost to Panama in Chester, Pennsylvania.

The attendance for the match is listed as a generous 12,000, and it’s most notable for DaMarcus Beasley’s penalty miss, in what was supposed to be his last match for the national team, sealing a dreadful tournament. It’s a Gold Cup USMNT supporters don’t want to relive. But I’m going to bring you back just for a moment, because I think it provides an appropriate lesson on the one-year anniversary of another day we really don’t want to remember.

A man among boys

After Panama went ahead in the 55th minute, Jurgen Klinsmann threw Clint Dempsey and DeAndre Yedlin into the mix to inject some pace and creativity. I remember feeling almost exhausted at the way the side struggled to string together more than a handful of passes, move forward, and execute simple dribbles around any Panamanian player. It was hard football to watch.

Cue Clint.

After an hour of having poor touches and even worse ideas from the U.S. players, Dempsey immediately brought life to the team. There’s something about seeing a game in person that makes you appreciate the fact the little things perfected define to complete player. His touches were close, he shimmied around defenders as he shielded the ball with technical nous, he wrangled through challenges, and he picked clever and simple passes in equal measure at the right times. It was about as show-stopping as you can get in a 3rd place match in the Gold Cup. Of course, he rounded out his performance with an equalizer in the 70th minute.

I always knew he was good, but that otherwise boring match was when I knew he was different than any other player the United States has ever produced.

The best of both worlds

By now, most long-time U.S. supporters know Dempsey’s story. He comes from a working class background, dealt with personal tragedy as a kid, and grew up playing with Latinos on the beaten fields of Nacogdoches, Texas. It’s the paradigm story of the hardworking athlete who betters himself and his family that you can’t help but fall in love with. However, the truth of Clint Dempsey’s narrative is more important than just a feel-good story.

One of the most enlightening moments I ever had as a football fan was getting to interview Tim Vickery with some friends after the 2014 World Cup in Rio for a film we were working on. Of everything we discussed, one note about the future of U.S. Soccer sticks out in my mind: The reason why it’s potential has gone untapped.

“Part of your foundation stone, I think, is the mental strength of Northern Europeans. I think you’ve got that. But you can add in so much more to the mix with such, such naturalness… and you can see it in Clint Dempsey. Where did he learn his football? He learned his football growing up on the streets playing with American Latinos… I know the pay-to-play thing is a little bit controversial and clearly works against the discovery of mass working-class talent. You want as few barriers to entry as possible in order to produce footballers. But I think the states have every chance of making a hybrid of Northern European aggression, mental strength and Latin American skill.” — Tim Vickery

We’ve certainly heard it before, especially since that rock-bottom moment against Trinidad and Tobago, but we need to honestly ask and answer the question: Are we really integrating Latin football into our game? Players with Latin roots have turned out for the USMNT on countless occasions, but there’s an issue with using that as the measuring stick for South and Central America’s influence on the domestic game.

When Clint Dempsey announced his retirement recently, Vickery’s words were the first thing that came to mind. Deuce is the embodiment of a hybrid player that the U.S. is primed to produce in spades. It’s not enough to have a player with qualities valued in Northern Europe, and another to have skills fit for the Latin game. We need players who can embrace both football cultures. Players who are different and new, befuddling opposition who’ve never seen anything like it. Imagine a starting XI with players who each possess the varied skill set of Clint Dempsey.

The next frontier for U.S. Soccer is less about integrating players from different backgrounds than it is about embracing the qualities of those styles to inform a coherent way to play the game and develop talent. That’s an important distinction that needs to be understood before we can make progress.

In Clint Dempsey, we have a perfect example of what this can produce. He can grind, he can dazzle, he’s more complete than any American of his generation, and he should be an example for any young player who wants to play for the national team in the years to come.

If the U.S. is to take a seat at the top of the sport, and really challenge for a World Cup, we’ll have to look back and remember Clint Dempsey as the first of a breed, not one of a kind.