Photo by Jane Gershovich/JaneG. Photography
SEATTLE– The United States Men’s National Team defeated Ecuador 2-1 in the Copa America quarterfinals on Thursday night, finally returning to the final four of a prestigious international tournament.
It does so thanks to a starting lineup left unmolested after years of relentless tinkering. Thanks to a formation that lets Michael Bradley do Michael Bradley things in a Michael Bradley part of the field. Thanks to a sprinkling of budding partnerships and a smattering of blossoming prospects.
But also thanks to Clint Dempsey.
Playing before an adoring crowd swollen with Seattle Sounders fans, Dempsey scored the first goal, assisted on the second goal, and generally submitted a fiery and inspired Man of the Match performance.
“Clint is special,” said USMNT head coach Jurgen Klinsmann after the match. “He showed that tonight. He showed that the last couple weeks. He showed that throughout his entire career.”
Just a few months ago, many (likely including Klinsmann) were wondering whether the 33-year-old Dempsey still had enough in the tank to contribute at the international level. Go younger and faster, the argument went. Groom someone for the next World Cup.
Or not.
“I don’t worry about that,” Dempsey said about perceptions and redemption. “I go out and I perform.”
Dempsey now has three goals in four tournament games, and continues to deliver the biggest goals on the biggest stages, beneath the brightest lights, under the most pressure. He silenced any rocking-chair talk long before Thursday night, but how fitting that he so firmly put his stamp on this tournament here, in this stadium and in this city.
Thursday’s game came almost exactly three years after Dempsey, in town with the USMNT then as well, took a fateful stroll around downtown Seattle a few days before a World Cup qualifier against Panama. The Sounders were playing the Vancouver Whitecaps that night, and Dempsey — who later conceded he was already itching to come home after seven European campaigns — couldn’t believe what he saw.
“It almost felt,” he said later that summer, “like you were in a different country, felt like you were in Europe. Walking around the city, you see the game is on TVs in bars, in restaurants. And I just went, ‘Wow, I never thought I’d see the day.’”
The small-town Texas kid turned grizzled Premiership veteran would be a Seattle Sounder in less than two months.
Seattle sits as far as you can get from the Lone Star State in ways more than geographic. But the lanky Texan’s performance, his celebration, and the crowd’s embrace on Thursday night testified to the bond that has formed in the last three years.
“It’s always great to do it at home,” Dempsey said after Thursday’s win. “It’s always great to do it for the States. It’s what you dream about as a kid. I’m blessed.”
It was a vintage Dempsey performance some had suggested was a thing of the past, although USMNT goalkeeper Brad Guzan was not among the skeptics.
“I don’t marvel at it now,” Guzan said of Dempsey’s sterling performance. “He’s been doing it for so long that it’s almost come to be expected a little bit. Because if he gets a half a chance, more times than not he’s going to put it on frame. And if he gets a clear chance, he’s more often than not going to score. He’s a big-time player for us.”
Dempsey returned to the U.S. because he and his family missed it, because he believed the domestic league was at last ready to don big-boy pants. Certainly an outsize paycheck was a consideration. But he has always maintained that he also returned to MLS out of a sincere desire to grow the game.
You have to wonder if Dempsey, strolling through downtown Seattle three years ago, stopped to watch a Sounders match through a restaurant window and saw himself on that CenturyLink pitch in a uniform something other than Rave Green, leading a national team into uncharted territory from an adopted hometown.
