SEATTLE -- Imagine for a minute that Clint Dempsey is an average American.
He
works a normal job, has a wife, kids, a wider family he loves to spend
time with and the wide-ranging respect of peers in his field. He works
for a prestigious company, makes a good living and will be able to
provide the comforts of life to those he loves.
Imagine that you
don’t know his name. That you don’t know the ins and outs of his job,
that you don’t watch him perform that job, and that the media doesn’t
care when he does well, or when he does poorly. He’s an average guy,
just a regular Joe who has been offered a raise, a move closer to his
family, fewer taxes, a lower cost of living, and a job with less stress.
You wouldn’t begrudge him that. In fact, if he asked your opinion,
you’d tell him to take it and run.
But Clint Dempsey is not average, not by a long shot.
From
January 2007 until August 2013, Dempsey was the standard bearer for
American soccer players, carrying the banner with him on pitches across
Europe, and doing it with an unabashed, unapologetic style that made him
stand out as both the most dangerous and the most uncontrollable player
this country had ever sent over the Atlantic. He fought his way onto
the field at Fulham, fought his way to being a star not only at the
club, but in one of the top leagues in the world. He fought his way out
of the Cottage and into one of the top teams in England.
And
then, suddenly and with as little warning as possible, that banner was
no longer his to carry. The night the Twitter world exploded and
#DempseyWatch2013 became a thing on social media, it was taken with a
grain of salt. Surely this wasn’t real. Clint Dempsey returning to Major League Soccer in his prime? Where is this coming from? This can’t be real.
But for Dempsey, it was real.
In
late August, as he left his vacation home in North Carolina for London
to join up with Tottenham, Dempsey first found out there was an
opportunity to return to MLS, with a substantial amount of money
possibly on the table. He went back to London, still fairly sure that he
would be with Tottenham for the 2013-14 season, but the idea of a move
back to MLS grew with every passing day.
“It was almost like a snowball effect,” the 30-year-old Dempsey told Goal.
Spurs,
with Dempsey in tow, made a preseason trip to Hong Kong, and the move
continued to gain traction, even with the time difference making the
sharing of information harder than it would have been had he been in
England or the United States. By the time Dempsey and Tottenham returned
to London, the U.S. national team captain was waiting on the final word that a deal was on the table.
That word finally came and Dempsey headed back to his homeland. Because of the late notice and the lack of direct flights to Seattle from London, Dempsey had a layover in San Francisco, and by the time he finally landed in the home of the Sounders, the biggest story of the summer in American soccer was starting to shape up.
