It’s been four years since Antonio Chimenti watched a lazy, chipped effort sail past him into Craven Cottage’s north end goal. Four years, since the unlikely scorer ran alongside the advertising hoardings of a vociferous Hammersmith End crowd in something of a victory lap, as Juventus’ third-string goalkeeper cowered at his error, the fourth fatal conception of an unrelenting night between the posts for the aging Italian. The elated tenants of the Cottage’s northernmost concourse clung tighter to their impossible dream of a Europa League title, shouting choruses of, “He scores with his left! He scores with his right! That boy Clint Dempsey, Makes Drogba look shite!” As with any proper Fulham chant, the lyrics – gaudy and unpolished as they may have been - stylishly insulted Chelsea, Fulham’s notoriously rivaled neighbors of London’s SW6 district, and that night, the praises, adoring sentiments, and larger-than-life comparisons were all for Clint Dempsey.
On the southwestern banks of the River Thames, that moment still lingers in the air; a quiet relic of the recent past, and a monumental footprint ingrained in Fulham’s 135-year-old history. However, four years have undoubtedly brought change in the English capital, where the Premiership’s oldest London club has buoyed between 8th place and relegation since that triumph over Italy’s finest, facing the latter scenario for the first time after 13 consecutive years in the top flight. In four years, plans to expand the club’s sacred stadium grounds have evolved from whimsical blueprints into in-motion renovation concepts, complete with the installment of a modernized pitch featuring engineered, hybrid materials and “fibrelastic” sod, replacing the stadium’s all-natural surface of old. The club has changed its kit manufacturing partner twice since that night in 2010 - from Nike to Kappa, and then once more to Adidas - and championed for a host of enterprises in out-of-place, chest-borne advertisements, from LG Electronics, to MarathonBet gaming, to FxPro Financial. There has been an active turnstile in the director’s box; from the softly-spoken, revolutionary era of Roy Hodgson to the presently flamboyant and eccentric Felix Magath, five managers have led semi-sumptuous squads of Cottagers to pseudo climaxes and mundane league finishes in the past four campaigns. At Craven Cottage, even the façade has been altered since that semifinal: a transitional period between chairmen produced an impromptu and ominously kitschy plaster-and-resin tribute to Michael Jackson outside of the stadium grounds - a feat uncomfortably received by Cottagers until the statue was unceremoniously laid to rest 217 miles away in a Manchester museum. Indeed, plenty has changed since that surreal night four years ago.
On the southwestern banks of the River Thames, that moment still lingers in the air; a quiet relic of the recent past, and a monumental footprint ingrained in Fulham’s 135-year-old history. However, four years have undoubtedly brought change in the English capital, where the Premiership’s oldest London club has buoyed between 8th place and relegation since that triumph over Italy’s finest, facing the latter scenario for the first time after 13 consecutive years in the top flight. In four years, plans to expand the club’s sacred stadium grounds have evolved from whimsical blueprints into in-motion renovation concepts, complete with the installment of a modernized pitch featuring engineered, hybrid materials and “fibrelastic” sod, replacing the stadium’s all-natural surface of old. The club has changed its kit manufacturing partner twice since that night in 2010 - from Nike to Kappa, and then once more to Adidas - and championed for a host of enterprises in out-of-place, chest-borne advertisements, from LG Electronics, to MarathonBet gaming, to FxPro Financial. There has been an active turnstile in the director’s box; from the softly-spoken, revolutionary era of Roy Hodgson to the presently flamboyant and eccentric Felix Magath, five managers have led semi-sumptuous squads of Cottagers to pseudo climaxes and mundane league finishes in the past four campaigns. At Craven Cottage, even the façade has been altered since that semifinal: a transitional period between chairmen produced an impromptu and ominously kitschy plaster-and-resin tribute to Michael Jackson outside of the stadium grounds - a feat uncomfortably received by Cottagers until the statue was unceremoniously laid to rest 217 miles away in a Manchester museum. Indeed, plenty has changed since that surreal night four years ago.
For the former savior of the Hammersmith End, the four years since his self-described “lucky” lobbed goal have fallen into place almost systematically. After extinguishing the flame to a decade-long romance period between Fulham and a rotating cast of American players (an era better-known by its portmanteau “Fulhamerica”) by making the forsaken, 14-mile trek northward to Tottenham Hotspur’s White Hart Lane, Clint Dempsey has traversed across The Pond and back, for a whisk-away loan spell, in a chaotically-organized sequence of club transfers and playing endeavors. After becoming the first player to achieve a half-centurion of goals in Fulham white during the Premiership era, Dempsey brought ceremonious closure to his London adventure and altered the trajectory of the ever-active pursuit to transform the state of soccer in the United States. Today, Dempsey is something of a folkloric American hero, recognized by the shadow-rimmed eyes, crooked smirk, and constant, endearing scowl to supporters of The Beautiful Game across the globe. The beloved son of Fulham’s Hammersmith End has spiraled into the tangible superhero of a nation and a real-life Captain America to generations - from impressionable young kids to potbellied, bandanna-laden avengers.
Since Jürgen Klinsmann's appointment as head coach of the United States Men's National Team in 2011, his philosophy has been clear: to transform the United States Men’s National Team into something of a "next-level,"international powerhouse – sophisticated, clearly-defined, dauntless, and nestled into the highest echelons of football. While Klinsmann’s first chance to test the USMNT’s evolved image and reshaped tactical output against the world’s finest footballing machines ended abruptly during the Round of 16 this summer in Brazil, the German has found a working balance between personnel relics of his predecessor Bob Bradley’s tenure and younger squad additions - the pawns of his electrifying soccer revolution. |
Those implanting themselves into challenging surroundings abroad not only earned respect from the German international upon his arrival three years ago, but were crowned as the focal points of the latest national team picture. At the time, Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard were both working towards stardom in the Premier League, while Michael Bradley endured a stint in Italy’s Serie A, and Jermaine Jones his own in the Bundesliga, together forming a synergistic compilation of U.S. Soccer’s most daring expatriated crusaders. While he’s often been relegated to playing second fiddle to Landon Donovan in recognition, notoriety, and international goals (Donovan – 57, Dempsey – 38), no player embodied, embraced, and tested the boundaries of Jürgen Klinsmann’s nebulous, shapeless philosophy of reaching the “next level” through foreign competition like Clint Dempsey. By the climax of the USMNT’s World Cup qualifying Hexagonal, it was Dempsey’s flair and well-established foothold in the Premier League (playing for Tottenham Hotspur, at the time) that earned him the captain’s armband. In Brazil, the spot-light belonged solely to the American captain from the 29th second of the United States’ opening match against Ghana – without Donovan’s central prowess, Dempsey’s freedom was practically boundless. He seized the moment by scoring the fifth-fastest goal in World Cup history.
In the American soccer market, a microcosmic environment where every ebb and flow is measured, categorized, and contrasted to a catastrophic extent, Clint Dempsey is a refreshing and much-needed outlier. For Klinsmann, appointing Dempsey to the USMNT captaincy meant placing the prime accountability of the USMNT’s on-field progression in the hands of one of the squad’s most unpredictable and individually skillful facets, “Behind making Clint Dempsey the captain was the simple thought [of taking] on leadership, [taking] on responsibility,” Klinsmann revealed. The risk proved rewarding: by expanding the responsibilities of the soft-spoken, austere, and cerebral Dempsey, a self-coined “leader by example,” the versatility, positional awareness, and inexhaustible nature of those around him improved as well. Dempsey is the pinnacle of unconventionalism; providing a transcendental centerpiece to any formation, a pseudo poacher in extreme situations like Jozy Altidore’s untimely injury during the World Cup, and clinical, dedicated roaming trequartista, with the freedom to produce world class moments of pure intimacy with the ball. His commitment mirrors the kid from dusty, hard-edged Nacogdoches pick-up matches, transformed by sacrifice, and saturated in the culture of The Beautiful Game via countless hours of indulging in South American leagues on television,“Even at five years old… you could see that Clint got it, understood what you’re supposed to be doing,” Dempsey’s older brother Ryan told The Atlantic. “He’d mimic all the guys we’d just seen on TV—Maradona, Caniggia, Valderamma, Brazilian, Argentine, and Colombian players.”
In the American soccer market, a microcosmic environment where every ebb and flow is measured, categorized, and contrasted to a catastrophic extent, Clint Dempsey is a refreshing and much-needed outlier. For Klinsmann, appointing Dempsey to the USMNT captaincy meant placing the prime accountability of the USMNT’s on-field progression in the hands of one of the squad’s most unpredictable and individually skillful facets, “Behind making Clint Dempsey the captain was the simple thought [of taking] on leadership, [taking] on responsibility,” Klinsmann revealed. The risk proved rewarding: by expanding the responsibilities of the soft-spoken, austere, and cerebral Dempsey, a self-coined “leader by example,” the versatility, positional awareness, and inexhaustible nature of those around him improved as well. Dempsey is the pinnacle of unconventionalism; providing a transcendental centerpiece to any formation, a pseudo poacher in extreme situations like Jozy Altidore’s untimely injury during the World Cup, and clinical, dedicated roaming trequartista, with the freedom to produce world class moments of pure intimacy with the ball. His commitment mirrors the kid from dusty, hard-edged Nacogdoches pick-up matches, transformed by sacrifice, and saturated in the culture of The Beautiful Game via countless hours of indulging in South American leagues on television,“Even at five years old… you could see that Clint got it, understood what you’re supposed to be doing,” Dempsey’s older brother Ryan told The Atlantic. “He’d mimic all the guys we’d just seen on TV—Maradona, Caniggia, Valderamma, Brazilian, Argentine, and Colombian players.”
“Clint played abroad for many years and decided to come back to MLS for an amazing amount of money… a huge deal. It was for me, from a purely soccer perspective very difficult to take because for the national team environment, you want your best players playing in the best teams in the world… and they are in Europe.” In a budding system where exceptions are looked to as benchmarks and trendsetters, Clint Dempsey’s decision to move back to Major League Soccer shed the unspoken burden of using a foreign setting as an essential to “grow the [American] game.” An American player, and captain no less, had finally made a decision that altered perspectives on the “greater good” of soccer in the United States, rather than adhering to a somewhat strict historical agenda of moving abroad for the highest competition. At the exact moment that Clint Dempsey stood in the center of the artificial pitch at Seattle Sounders’ CenturyLink Field before thousands of adoring Emerald City faithful and unveiled his own Sounders kit from beneath sweatshirt, his successes, and those of the United States and soccer became separate entities.
That was last August. Recovered from an uneventful loan spell back to Craven Cottage and an early goal-drought during his MLS return, Clint Dempsey has since re-acclimated himself into the volatile, face-making, rampant goal-scorer and personality he’s always been. Alongside Nigerian international Obafemi Martins, with whom he’s developed an almost subconscious on-field awareness with, Dempsey’s quality has been a novelty in MLS, especially for the Seattle Sounders who sit atop the league’s Western conference, and in the current lead for the Supporter’s Shield race. |
As a fan of rap music and a budding performer himself, Dempsey’s move back to the United States has also fueled some of his accolades in one of his many fascinating realms of interest– the music industry. After taking a scroll through the YouTube comments on Dempsey’s latest collaboration single, “It’s Poppin’” the response to Dempsey’s rap infatuation is plenty: the USMNT captain has a healthy following and a decent stream of feedback-packed comments, any number of which are laden with jibes of approval tinged with internet slang or patriotic sentiments of a particularly soccer-oriented persuasion. In the song, in 37 lines of minimally-explicit, broken metrical verse, Dempsey addresses everything from his Instagram following to a dodgy self-comparison to Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch.
Fans have adopted his stage name “Deuce” as a term of endearment, and as the midfielder continues to grow into himself as both a player and captain, reflecting elements of his beloved hometown roots and rap music both on the pitch as much as he does off of it, the nickname couldn’t be more fitting, “I’m focused on soccer, trying to make the most of my career but, I enjoy rapping. The first vehicle I ever had didn’t have a radio in it so I would rap to go to school. My younger brother used to always tell me to shut up but, it’s just something I’ve always enjoyed… I grew up on Houston rap… that really shaped me as a person, that’s what I like to listen to before games,” Dempsey says. Since the release of his first single in 2006, Dempsey’s rebellious, scowl-faced rap persona has long since parted with a shaggier, leonine hairdo for an edgier, no-nonsense buzzcut. He’s also elaborated on the beginnings of his trademark tattoo half-sleeve, now an intricate, winding work of art that trails up and around his chest, with a range of symbols from an inverted silhouette of the state of Texas to a tombstone and tennis racquet, a somber ode to his late sister, Jennifer. A scripted paragraph of Psalm 23, sits just below a depiction of the War in Heaven scene, where the archangel Michael leads a most notorious battle against the Devil. His off-field charisma tends to be the polar opposite of his usually steely, warrior’s persona; a quiet, friendly guy, doused in a healthy, soft-edged Eastern Texas drawl. But don’t be fooled: he’s ferocious, he’s inquisitive, he’s multidimensional, and he’s here to make a statement.
Fans have adopted his stage name “Deuce” as a term of endearment, and as the midfielder continues to grow into himself as both a player and captain, reflecting elements of his beloved hometown roots and rap music both on the pitch as much as he does off of it, the nickname couldn’t be more fitting, “I’m focused on soccer, trying to make the most of my career but, I enjoy rapping. The first vehicle I ever had didn’t have a radio in it so I would rap to go to school. My younger brother used to always tell me to shut up but, it’s just something I’ve always enjoyed… I grew up on Houston rap… that really shaped me as a person, that’s what I like to listen to before games,” Dempsey says. Since the release of his first single in 2006, Dempsey’s rebellious, scowl-faced rap persona has long since parted with a shaggier, leonine hairdo for an edgier, no-nonsense buzzcut. He’s also elaborated on the beginnings of his trademark tattoo half-sleeve, now an intricate, winding work of art that trails up and around his chest, with a range of symbols from an inverted silhouette of the state of Texas to a tombstone and tennis racquet, a somber ode to his late sister, Jennifer. A scripted paragraph of Psalm 23, sits just below a depiction of the War in Heaven scene, where the archangel Michael leads a most notorious battle against the Devil. His off-field charisma tends to be the polar opposite of his usually steely, warrior’s persona; a quiet, friendly guy, doused in a healthy, soft-edged Eastern Texas drawl. But don’t be fooled: he’s ferocious, he’s inquisitive, he’s multidimensional, and he’s here to make a statement.
***
Today, the American-sized void in Fulham’s senior team has found an heir to the “Fulhamerica” torch in 18-year-old Emerson Hyndman, a youngster who made his unofficial first appearance for the Cottagers this summer. Ironically, like the man who came before him, Hyndman’s roots lie over 4,700 miles away - in Texas – but the mystery remains where his winding career will take him. Dated ‘DEMPSEY’ kits still linger around White Hart Lane as they do around Craven Cottage, even while the man himself has taken up playing, living, and raising his children an ocean away in Seattle. But, it's the Hammersmith End version of “That Boy Clint Dempsey” still comes up as a common search query in YouTube; as do clips from that rainy night at Craven Cottage and the audacious lob over Antonio Chimenti, the record 57 Premier League goals, the countless interviews and skill compilations, and even the lyrics to Dempsey’s first rap single, “Don’t Tread:”
In the beginning,
We were those kids
That played on the dirt fields
But with determination
We came from the bottom and rose to the top
We chased and grabbed ahold of our dreams
Now we play on the fields where the grass is greenest
And we can tell by the looks on their face
When they find out what the dream is we chased
They hate
But we as a team
Have a phrase we say when negativity comes our way
Don't tread on this
Clint “Deuce” Dempsey, “Don’t Tread,” 2006