Clint Dempsey: Scrappy All-American?

I just read a pretty good article by Dan Gerstle of the Princeton U. newspaper on Clint Dempsey, the new "future of American soccer." Gerstle makes some points that I really appreciate, namely that Landon Donovan is/was a failure and that this country needs a new model/inspiration. The author makes some dubious comparisons to Ronaldinho and Wayne Rooney in his piece but he also has some gems, like this:

"Donovan was once considered the great American soccer hope and his failure is instructive. In a sense, he represents American privilege. He could have been a great player, but he never had the mindset, just as the bankers in New York never had the mindset to be great fans. Donovan fled the trials and competitiveness of high-level club soccer in Germany for assured dominance in the MLS. As a soccer nation, America seems too comfortable."

I also found the article instructive as I spend very little time reading about US players or watching the MLS. I did not know, for example, that Dempsey was born poor. What our national team needs are more kids that are products of crappily-maintained fields and playgrounds and fewer upper-middle class products of insanely priced soccer "academies" and traveling teams. This of course is not to say that a kid born into means can't be a quality player (Kaká and Bebeto are but two examples), I just wish our national team looked more like our public schools and less like some posh prep school.

I enjoyed watching Dempsey during the World Cup. After Bobby Convey, I thought he was the most impressive player for the US. It's a crime that MLS isn't letting him move to Europe to prove himself at the highest level.