{"id":21748,"date":"2022-11-16T17:55:23","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T22:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=21748"},"modified":"2022-11-16T21:53:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T02:53:01","slug":"why-walker-zimmerman-is-the-leader-the-usmnt-needs-at-world-cup-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/why-walker-zimmerman-is-the-leader-the-usmnt-needs-at-world-cup-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Walker Zimmerman is the leader the USMNT needs at World Cup 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the FIFA World Cup draws near, media outlets are turning their attention to former Furman University Paladin defender Walker Zimmerman &#8217;15. Zimmerman, who helped the U.S. qualify for the World Cup earlier this year, is a two-time MLS Defender of the Year and Nashville SC center back. An article on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/stories\/soccer\/why-walker-zimmerman-is-the-leader-the-usmnt-needs-at-world-cup-2022\">FOX Sports<\/a> claims he might be what the USMNT needs to lead the fight, which starts Nov. 20 in Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>For the piece, journalist Laken Litman taps family members, teammates, USMNT Coach Gregg Berhalter, and Furman Head Coach Doug Allison, who said Zimmerman is the &#8220;Tim Tebow of soccer&#8221; because of his leadership and commitment to his faith. &#8220;He\u2019s going to go into battle and you want to go with him. That\u2019s what he brings,&#8221; Allison added.<\/p>\n<p>The article also includes a video of Zimmerman describing his love for competition and his will to win. He played for the Paladins 2011-2012 before being drafted in 2013 by FC Dallas. He was traded in 2017 to expansion team Los Angeles FC, then was traded to expansion squad Nashville SC in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several family members, coaches and teammates describe Zimmerman&#8217;s passion for the game and his will to win. Furman Men&#8217;s Soccer Coach Doug Allison has much to say about the Furman standout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":21774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,24,1679,6,1],"tags":[1475,1673],"class_list":["post-21748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-fox-sports","category-in-the-news","category-uncategorized","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-mls"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}