While there are a few exceptional moments in USMNT history, American soccer fans as a whole don’t have a lot to write home about. The past six years in particular have fluctuated between disappointing and underwhelming unless you’re super into the Gold Cup. With the 2022 World Cup here, let’s hope that changes.
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However, I want to go back to a simpler time and take a look at the most underrated moment in USMNT history. In the grand scheme of things, this actually meant nothing. There is a reason most people don’t even remember what I want to highlight.
Anyway, the American soccer team was preparing for 2006 FIFA World Cup with the Send Off Series. This collection of games against sides who weren’t particularly good at the time was supposed to be a tune up for our eventual trip to the final. Of course, none of that ended up being true.
The USMNT was bounced in the group stage and the Send Off Series was nothing but a trio of labored performances in awful locations. A matchup against Latvia in Hartford? Really?
However, the series is also when the most underrated moment in USMNT history took place. A fairly dull contest between the USA and Venezuela in Cleveland is in full swing when Clint Dempsey headed home a Eddie Johnson cross in the 69th minute. Nice.
After the goal is when the most underrated moment in USMNT history happened. Clint Dempsey celebrated by Joc-in, also known as doing the Yung Joc motorcycle dance.
Now, I know what you’re saying. This is a throwaway goal celebration in a meaningless friendly. But it was really recognition for what soccer in America was at that moment in time–a suburban movement driven by young people who liked being different, whether that was listening to rap music or following the EPL.
Seeing Clint Dempsey Joc-in was everything coming together for those of us who watched MTV Jams religiously and thought Martin St. Louis and Michelle Lissel from Fox Soccer Report were cool.
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More importantly, it gave true soccer fans in the states someone we could actually root for. Brian McBride and Carlos Bocanegra were playing at Fulham but were also vanilla. Landon Donovan had always been extremely unlikeable. The rest of the squad were try hard guys who had few skills and even less personality.
Clint Dempsey was a soccer player who was talented and cool. That is what makes this the most underrated moment in USMNT history. We finally had someone with some attitude who could do something besides score a scrappy goal or sleep with their teammate’s wife.
Of course, Dempsey wasn’t the only person to do the Yung Joc motorcycle dance. Tom Cruise tried a few months later and Mac and Charlie also busted it out in an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But Deuce did it while the trend was still fresh. Not to mention, his rendition was completely unexpected.
At the end of the day, Clint Dempsey Joc-in during a World Cup warmup match in 2006 is meaningless to most. But for those of us who lived it during a time when soccer was still very much an underground movement resigned to message boards and Champions League games with Tommy Smyth on ESPN2, it will forever be remembered as the most underrated moment in USMNT history.
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