All smiles for Jamaican hero
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Jamaica’s goalkeeper never stopped smiling. From the opening whistle of the Reggae Boyz’s fairytale win over USA, Ryan Thompson’s teeth gleamed a brilliant white through a grin wide and bright. “Soccer’s a fun game,” he told FIFA.com, a chuckle around the edges of his Kingston accent.
Genuine smiles are rare in professional football. The stakes are too high. The freedom of childhood kickarounds in the fading sunlight is replaced by grimaces, the scowls of intense competition.
“I have a good time when I play,” the 30-year-old goalkeeper and unlikely Jamaican hero said after the 2-1 semi-final win against the CONCACAF Gold Cup hosts and five-time champions. It was the biggest upset in the tournament’s history, and one of Jamaica’s proudest moments. “I’ve had struggles in my life. Real ones. Football’s just a game. It’s a game that can kick you hard, but life’s gonna’ kick you harder!”
Thompson’s smiles on that fateful day against the hosts in Atlanta were many, and infectious. He wore a sheepish grin, almost an apology, when he foolishly tried to dribble around US striker Aron Johannsson inside the six-yard box, nearly costing his side an early goal. He smiled wide with pride when he dove away a long-distance screamer from Michael Bradley, the USA captain for whom a smile is rarer than a sighting of the mythical Bigfoot. The Jamaica keeper, wining only his sixth cap, smiled big again when he dove bravely at the feet of Clint Dempsey to deny the Gold Cup’s top scorer.
His smile was more a sigh of relief when he weirdly chose to punch away a strike from Bradley and sent the ball careening off his post. There was even a little smile when he conceded, dropping the first shot and then failing to bat away the rebound. Laying flat on his back, Thompson wore a grin that said: It’s football; what can you do?
“It was a busy day,” Thompson said, laughing, when asked about the USA game, where he made nine saves. “But that’s what you want out there. You want to work.”
He wasn’t expected to get much work at all in this Gold Cup. He arrived as understudy to starter Dwayne Miller, having sat out all three of Jamaica’s losses at the Copa America earlier in the summer. “You always feel like you’re No1, but you’re just waiting your turn,” Thompson said. And when Miller was carted off in the first round with a head injury, Thompson’s turn came. He protected the net in his carefree way to cling to a slim win over El Salvador. He’s kept the goal safe for Jamaica ever since.
Irish smiles, slippery slopes
Thompson plays his club football way down in the USA’s third professional tier, with the unfashionable Pittsburgh Riverhounds. His style between the sticks can best be called unconventional. German coach Winfried Schaefer seems near hysterics on the touchline when his keeper plays fast and loose in his box. But Thompson’s big frame and cat quickness make him formidable when he’s in the mood, as the MLS all-stars in the US team found out.
The Gold Cup isn’t Thompson’s only flirtation with the big stage. Despite many ups and downs, he’s played in the rarefied air of European competition. After a two-week trial in 2010, he made a move to Republic of Ireland’s Shamrock Rovers, where he lined up in the early rounds of both the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League, winning an Irish title in the bargain.
“Those memories stick with me,” he said. “But sometimes life takes you down a road and you end up in the third division somewhere.”
The road of life can also deliver you to centre-stage of a continental final. For Jamaica, a country obsessed with football, Sunday’s game against six-time champions Mexico will be an historic day. Certainly the biggest since 1998, when the Reggae Boyz reached the FIFA World Cup™ for the first and only time in their history.
Facing the biggest game in his career, Thompson still smiles. It’s in his voice and in his eyes. “Of course you have some butterflies,” he said with less than 24 hours to go before the final. “But what can you do? The game’s gonna’ come no matter what you do.”
It’s tempting to think this attitude is all just part of the well-sold reputation of laid-back Jamaica, that irie island in the warm waters of the Caribbean. Thompson laughs it off.
“I know a lot Jamaicans who are negative and tough. But I try to spin everything positive,” said the man who can make all of Jamaica smile with him on Sunday. “Even if I can only find half a positive, that’s still half a reason to stay up. It’s enough to keep me smiling."