So long, Deuce. Thanks for everything.

Clint Dempsey, who announced his retirement last week, defined soccer for a generation of U.S. fans.

Clint Dempsey, playing for Fulham at the iconic Craven Cottage, receives a pass just outside the box, a few feet to the right of the penalty area as you look toward the end line. He has his back to goal.

It’s March 18, 2010. Dempsey’s Fulham are hosting the mighty Juventus in the second leg of their Europa League round of 16 tie. Fulham have clawed their way back from a 3-1 first-leg defeat to pull level on aggregate.

The pass is knee-high. Dempsey — “Deuce,” as he’s commonly known — takes his first touch with the inside of his right foot, knocking the ball a yard or so toward the touchline, away from goal. He takes another touch, this time toward the top of the box, not far from the top corner of the penalty area. His head is down, focusing on the ball.

His right foot slices under the ball and stops almost immediately, without any follow through. The ball begins it’s impossible arc toward the far post just as Deuce lifts his head for the first time. The Juventus keeper, eyes wide with terror, watches the ball float over his head. He turns and takes a few stuttering steps toward the corner before giving up. He never had a chance.

Fulham are through to the quarterfinals of a European competition thanks to a guy from Nacogdoches, Texas, who likes to fish.

It may be cliche to start a tribute to Clint Dempsey with the chip against Juve. Then again, it’s perhaps the most brilliant, important club goal ever scored by an American in Europe (the most valuable also goes to Dempsey, who saved Fulham from relegation in 2007 with his first goal for the club), and it encapsulates everything I love about Deuce.

It’s Bruce Arena’s famous “he tries shit” quote come to life. The audacity to even think of trying it coupled with the ability to actually pull it off. It’s that thing where someone has so much confidence and verve it bleeds into arrogance. And in absolutely the best way. But most importantly, to me at least, it’s the celebration.

Watch it again. Dempsey goes berserk. He runs around the back side of the goal tugging on the Fulham crest and pounding his chest while screaming out what was surely an exquisite mixture of profanity. The passion, the competitiveness, the chip on the shoulder, the “give me the damn ball so I can win this damn game” attitude, the little bit of meanness that is so endearing. It’s all there, and it’s all Clint.

I fell in love with soccer during the 2006 World Cup. I didn’t play in high school. I hardly played when I was a kid. But then I saw one guy play soccer. No, not Dempsey. It was Cristiano Ronaldo. My small brain couldn’t comprehend the things he was doing with the ball using his feet. His feet. It was such a foreign concept to a guy raised in Southern Indiana on nothing but basketball and endless cornfields. I was enthralled. I looked up every Ronaldo highlight I could find. I started rooting for Manchester United. I even got my haircut like him (not really).

But at some point during this Ronaldo affair I started to realize that it may be a good thing to support the local guys. Not out of a sense of duty or patriotism, but because they were so bad. I’ve never been one to support Goliath, and Ronaldo and Manchester United were nothing if not Goliaths. The USMNT had an abysmal 2006 World Cup, notching a single point and finishing dead last in Group E. They allowed six goals and scored two, one of which was an own goal. The other? A Clint Dempsey banger, naturally.

He screamed. He thumped his chest. He danced. Thus started a decade-plus-long, one-sided love affair. I became a Deuce acolyte and a USMNT/Fulham superfan.

It’s hard to express the pride I felt witnessing Dempsey’s success in the Premier League. The United States didn’t produce players like him. We were bad at soccer. We were inferior. We didn’t deserve any respect on the world soccer stage. But here was Deuce, this lanky Texan, scoring goals against the best clubs in the world.

Clint grew into a Fulham legend. The Cottager faithful loved him; they sang songs about him. (“He scores with his left, he scores with his right. That boy Clint Dempsey makes Drogba look shite.”) He’s still Fulham’s all-time leading goalscorer in the Premier League. Dempsey scored over 20 (!) more goals than fellow-beloved-Fulham-American Brian McBride. He’s also the only American international to register a Premier League hat-trick, which he did against Newcastle in 2012.

He faired just as well in international play. As a rock for the USMNT, Dempsey was one of the only players in the player pool capable of that moment of magic we so often hear about in soccer. Deuce could be nigh invisible an entire match before popping up at the perfect time with a ridiculous goal. Who could forget when he scored within 30 seconds against Ghana in the 2014 World Cup? Or the goal against Spain in the 2009 Confederations Cup? Or the Snow Goal against Costa Rica in World Cup qualifying in 2013? Or Deuce Face? Or the time he intentionally (of course it was intentional) missed a penalty in order to secure another Dos a Cero victory against Mexico? You get the point.

Dempsey finished his international career tied with Landon Donovan for most USMNT goals at 57. He’s the only American man to score in three World Cups. And he did this all with the perfect amount of swagger and flair. Deuce also did just enough things you didn’t like — going down a bit too easy, hitting opponents in the bits — to make him feel like family. He had the underdog’s snarl, the “started from the bottom, now we here” backstory and the giant-slaying DNA.

Clint Dempsey was one of a kind. He made you want to wrap yourself in the flag like your extremely jingoistic uncle. He made you a lifelong fan of a tiny soccer club in London. He transformed an American-sports-only kid into a soccer-obsessed maniac.

I’ll never love another soccer player as much as I loved him.

Thank you, Deuce. For everything.