Clint Dempsey Taunted Portland Fans In His Sweary Victory Rally Speech

Clint Dempsey may have been unable to play in the MLS Cup Final, but he wound up making the biggest contribution to his team’s championship push.

The Sounders held their victory march and rally yesterday to celebrate winning the MLS Cup last weekend, beating Toronto FC on penalties. After a winding march through downtown Seattle, the rally coalesced at Seattle Center where players and team officials gathered in the shadow of the Space Needle and addressed their adoring, lime green fans.

Dempsey was, of course, absent for much of the late push for the Cup. The former USMNT captain was ruled out of key fixtures late in the summer for an irregular heartbeat, and was benched for the remainder of the season in late September.

But there was no way he was skipping the rally. And when it was his turn to give a speech, Dempsey took the opportunity to luxuriate in spite for the Sounders’ Cascadian rivals to the utter delight of the fans.

(NSFW language to follow.)

The censors weren’t prepared for @clint_dempseypic.twitter.com/HYBWYkmgWc

— Bryan Wiedey (@pastapadre) December 13, 2016

In case it wasn’t clear, Dempsey’s remarks were as follows:

”All I got to say is, now that we won one, Portland can’t say [expletive deleted]!”

MLS fans tend to be more magnanimous toward other teams than Europe or South America, but when it comes to Seattle vs Portland that all goes right out the window.

And because this is how we live now, the incident inspired a flood of memes.

Dempsey: Be cliched and humble on stage

Internal Dempsey: Roast PDX with those bars u got on deck lmao pic.twitter.com/W1YFNVyWiB

— price ??? (@price303) December 13, 2016

You can watch the rally in its entirety below.