Did Walker Zimmerman manifest this?
As a 9-year-old, Zimmerman watched highlights on repeat throughout the 2002 World Cup. He remembers the United States reaching the quarterfinal match towards Germany. His mother and father threw a World Cup get together on their avenue and youngsters ran round draped in American flags with their faces painted pink, white and blue.
When he was 12, he had a USMNT check in his bed room window that his mom, Becky, says he might see when he lay down on the backside bunk mattress.
“He said, ‘I put it there, Mom, so I could see it and remember what my goal is,’” Becky says. “He took it to college and put a U.S. flag on his wall, too.”
Now Zimmerman, a two-time MLS defender of the 12 months for Nashville SC, will begin at middle again for the U.S. at the World Cup in Qatar, which begins Nov. 20.
“I don’t think it was clicking yet, the magnitude of it,” Zimmerman says as he prepares to play in his first World Cup. “It’s right where I hoped I would be ever since I was a kid. And quite frankly, it’s where I expected myself to be. And I think that belief has been very important to my journey, to have confidence in yourself and make sure you put in the work to get to where you want to be.”
At 29, Zimmerman is considered one of the older gamers on Gregg Berhalter’s roster, which has a difficult path out of Group B, dealing with Wales, England and Iran. With a crew that has a number of big-game expertise however basically zero World Cup expertise, gamers will lean on the bonds they’ve constructed and search for leaders in the locker room to stoke confidence.
That’s the place Zimmerman is available in.
He’s considered one of the crew’s best leaders and will probably be referred to as upon to behave as such. Doug Allison, his coach at Furman University, says Zimmerman is “the Tim Tebow of soccer” due to his management and dedication to his religion. He additionally “loves the idea that it’s honorable to represent your country,” says his father, David.
“If someone is doing something wrong, he’s pointing it out, and if someone scores, he’s the first to jump on him,” Allison says.
During the group stage, Zimmerman can have his fingers full, as he’ll go up instantly towards gamers like Gareth Bale and Harry Kane, although, Allison says, “He’s not going to be intimidated by the names.”
“It’s like in ‘Braveheart,’ ‘Now who’s with me?’ Well, Walker is not doing his hair for nothing,” Allison continues, a reference to Zimmerman’s Thor-like lengthy blonde hair. “He’s going to go into battle and you want to go with him. That’s what he brings.”
*** *** ***
His mom says Zimmerman was “a scrapper from the beginning.”
He was the youngest of three brothers and the youngest of 9 boys who lived in the cul-de-sac on Vendue Drive in Lawrenceville, Georgia. He all the time tried to get in on no matter the older children have been as much as, even when he was too small. At 9 months outdated, he stood up and walked throughout an 8-by-11 rug in the lounge straight to his mother. No child steps, simply acquired up and walked. “It was crazy,” Becky says.
When his brothers Dawson and Carter wished to have a neighborhood lemonade stand, they recruited 2-year-old Walker to be their promoter. A crew participant from the starting, he sat on high of the cooler, shirtless, with cowboy boots on.
“Who’s gonna pass up a little boy sitting there advertising?” David says. “Everybody stopped.”
Zimmerman was sport to play alongside, even from an early age. (Photo courtesy Becky Zimmerman)
Zimmerman adopted his brothers into sports activities. They performed the whole lot, from soccer to baseball to basketball. When he was 12, Zimmerman stated he would play skilled sports activities, although at the time didn’t know which one. A 12 months later, taking part in for the U14 youth nationwide crew, he dedicated to soccer.
“I felt real strongly that he was going to play professionally,” Becky says. “All my boys were athletic, but he had this real passion. The kind you hear about where guys stay late, and you look out the window and they’re shooting baskets continually, juggling the ball and ‘Mom, come out and throw the ball so I can volley it against the house!’ I mean it was just constant. You can’t teach that. There was a hunger.”
Zimmerman performed for native membership GSA and when he was 14, he went to Argentina with the regional Olympic Development Program crew. Allison, who was the coach, recollects seeing the potential in a tall, slim participant who was taking part in proper again greater than middle again then. But what he remembers greater than his efficiency on the discipline is how he acted away from it.
“You’re looking for things off the field at that age for kids and hoping they behave themselves so far away from home,” Allison says, noting that Zimmerman was a optimistic affect others have been drawn to. “He was all the time surrounded by the different guys in the foyer of the resort.
“Then after the journey, I bear in mind him sending me a letter with laminated photos of himself saying that he’ll make the nationwide crew sometime. He was so decided. I feel that was an enormous factor. The imaginative and prescient he had of himself. He might see himself hopefully someday taking part in in the skilled ranks. I used to be like, wow, this man has acquired some unbelievable targets.”
Zimmerman was persistent. He sent Allison more laminated pictures of himself playing with the U14, U15 and U16 national teams inside a booklet that also included extracurriculars like being a group leader and mentor for youth groups of his church, in which his parents were pastors and missionaries. Allison recruited him to play at Furman and once Zimmerman committed, he recruited friends and teammates to join him there. Ranked 15th in the country in the 2011 class, Zimmerman became the centerpiece and helped Allison compile a top-20 group.
Zimmerman at 17 in a GSA championship game that he played in right after returning from a national team event. (Photo courtesy Becky Zimmerman)
Zimmerman graduated from high school early to enroll at Furman in the spring of 2011. In his two seasons — before being selected No. 7 overall by FC Dallas in the 2013 MLS SuperDraft — he was named All-American, scored 11 goals and helped the Paladins make the NCAA Tournament.
Allison, who coached Clint Dempsey at Furman from 2001-03, says Zimmerman reminds him of the former USMNT star because of a shared competitiveness and desire to play at the highest level.
“He doesn’t need to lose at ping-pong, he doesn’t need to lose placing his socks on,” Allison says. “You can ask Sally, his spouse. It should get actually outdated generally. I’m positive with [their son] Tucker, it’s who can put the diaper on quickest? He is so aggressive, however enjoyable with it. You see the management qualities right away. He’s all the time speaking on the discipline. He’s all the time pointing. He’s all the time telling guys the place to be. He needs to get higher, he needs to problem himself.”
Walker Zimmerman on his competitive nature, love for winning
Walker Zimmerman breaks down why he is so aggressive and the way he approaches soccer, each bodily and mentally.
With the USMNT, Zimmerman has been fast to tackle any duty. He’s a gamers’ affiliation consultant who performed an element in bringing his crew collectively earlier this 12 months to forge a historic collective bargaining settlement with the U.S. women’s side to make sure equal pay. To assist get the deal accomplished, he inspired his teammates, generally in tough conversations, to get on Zoom calls from throughout the world.
“To be the first [U.S. men’s team] to say, ‘Yeah, we’ll share equal prize money at the World Cup,’ is a big deal,” Zimmerman says. “We’re excited about that, being on the front foot of being the change. That’s the motto we’ve had for a couple years now, and it applies to multiple things, and so I’m really proud of the group. It’s not easy until you are the ones who are doing it. I don’t want that to be undervalued and don’t want to take away everything the women have had to go through.
“I’m actually proud to be a part of it and felt like I used to be able to be extra upfront about it and be extra of a spokesperson and that is simply via conversations with guys on the crew.”
Zimmerman, a family man who brings his 1-year-old son Tucker to camp whenever possible, also prioritizes making connections. He still attends a small men’s bible study and hosts church community groups with his wife, Sally. The couple recently endowed a scholarship for the Furman men’s soccer team. One time, a Furman alum asked Allison if his 10-year-old son could meet Zimmerman after a Nashville SC-New York Red Bulls game in New York. Allison told Zimmerman about the request and the star defender remembered to say hello to the young fan and his friends afterward.
“You textual content him after a sport, you name him and he all the time solutions the cellphone, he all the time replies to a textual content,” Allison says. “When he’s speaking to our guys right here, they’ll get his quantity and textual content him and he’ll textual content again in 5 minutes. He’s accessible to us.
“… That sums up Walker right there.”
*** *** ***
In April, Zimmerman signed a delegated participant contract with Nashville SC — $10 million assured over 4 years — that made him considered one of the top-paid defenders in MLS historical past. General supervisor Mike Jacobs referred to as him “our Tom Brady.”
But earlier than that, there have been occasions Zimmerman struggled to make rosters. He didn’t make the USMNT earlier than the 2012 London Olympics (the crew didn’t qualify anyway) or the 2013 U20 World Cup. There have been occasions he didn’t play for FC Dallas. He’s been via accidents, like the hamstring that stored him out of the 2021 Gold Cup. He missed a penalty kick throughout MLS playoffs final season. He makes use of his experiences to assist others.
“He told our whole team about that,” Allison says. “He said, ‘Look, I’ve failed. But it made me stronger. A lot of guys can’t persevere because there are lots of lonely days when you go home and didn’t make a roster. So what do you do? Sit there and let it mentally affect you?’
“He’s all the time like, What do I must do to get higher? What do I must do to be the finest? Not simply make the roster, however begin? Quite a lot of lesser characters would have utterly crumbled, however there is a rock in there, a basis.”
His U.S. teammates agree. Tyler Adams calls him “an intense participant” and a leader; Weston McKennie, who additionally performed with him at FC Dallas, says “he’s only a rock in the again.”
“He’s all the time had the capability to steer groups,” McKennie continues. “Whenever we’re struggling, even off the discipline, that’s somebody you’ll be able to go and discuss to.”
Zimmerman is additionally stable on the discipline, after all.
He’s “distinctive in the air,” says Berhalter, and is considered one of the USMNT’s finest passers out of the again.
“You can rely on him to win aerial duels, you’ll be able to rely on him to sacrifice his physique in entrance of a shot,” McKennie says. “Those are middle backs that gamers usually do not need to play towards, and it is all the time good to have somebody like that in your nook.”
Walker Zimmerman on Nashville SC and USMNT I FOX Soccer
Nashville SC defender Walker Zimmerman talks with Doug McIntyre about the chemistry on the US males’s nationwide crew and far more.
Zimmerman, who has 33 caps for the nationwide crew, made his debut in early 2017 however wasn’t rostered the evening the U.S. was shocked by Trinidad and Tobago and did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup. He lastly turned an everyday in October 2021 for one more spherical of World Cup qualifiers. He’s performed in 10 video games for the USMNT in 2022, which is tied for the most of any participant (Adams, Christian Pulisic, Jedi Robinson and Jesus Ferreira even have 10), and has captained the crew six occasions.
“What you see is what you get,” Berhalter says. “He wears his heart on his sleeve. He goes out and competes every single day. He’s a warrior and that’s what you want in center backs and that’s what you want as a teammate. Guys can rely on him to give 100% in everything he’s gonna do.”
Zimmerman has not dominated out taking part in in Europe at some level. He hasn’t been utterly ignored — he did have abroad presents after his All-American freshman 12 months at Furman, however had simply met Sally, so he stayed again. A powerful exhibiting in Qatar might earn him one other shot to take that subsequent step.
“I’m wanting at a few of the middle backs taking part in in the Premier League and am like, Walker can do this, Walker can do this,” Allison says. “This will probably be a extremely vital probability for him together with his crew.
“Especially whenever you’re taking part in towards Wales, that’s not a straightforward sport. Gareth Bale might present up at any second. Then Harry Kane at England, perhaps Mason Mount. Those guys play for high Premier League groups. He’s acquired an opportunity. Clint Dempsey actually took that probability after which ended up with Fulham and Tottenham.”
Zimmerman is focused on leading the U.S. as far as possible in Qatar. After all, he’s been preparing his whole life for this moment.
“There’s a number of good professionals on the market, however to be a great professional and a great individual are various things,” Allison says. “He remembers his membership coach, he remembers his faculty coach. You sit right down to dinner with him and that smile comes again from that 14-year-old boy in the foyer in Argentina. He’s by no means misplaced it.
“It’s not just surface value with his haircuts and stuff. There’s a lot of depth to Walker Zimmerman. And there’s a lot about Walker that’s still to come.”
Read extra:
Laken Litman covers faculty soccer, faculty basketball and soccer for FOX Sports. She beforehand wrote for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the writer of “Strong Like a Woman,” printed in spring 2022 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX. Follow her on Twitter @LakenLitman.
Get extra from FIFA World Cup 2022 Follow your favorites to get details about video games, information and extra
