On May 2, 2001, Grant Wahl attended a MetroStars game on assignment from Sports Illustrated. One must understand what a rarity that was: a SI, America's most important sports magazine, didn't give a rat's behind about soccer generally and MLS specifically. And yet, here was Wahl, schlepping to Giants Stadium to cover the game's and the league's rising star: Clint Mathis. Clint didn't disappoint that day, scoring a hat-trick to dismiss Kansas City. Wahl's profile appeared in print soon after. But that rare piece of early American soccer journalism was not the only thing created that night.

Wahl asked the Empire Supporters Club if they have any Mathis-related chants. Somehow, there were none. Somemone mumbled something about the "Mathodist Church", which was neither here nor there. So, there, on the spot, it was born:

SHOW US YOUR CLINT. (No, it didn't make the article. Wahl settled on a more generic and more safe-for-print "There is only one Clint Mathis".)

Today, the US soccer community mourns the passing of Wahl. Just hours ago, he was tweeting his delight in witnessing today's Argentina-Netherlands match. Just a day ago, he wrote about the indifference the Qatar organizers have about workers deaths. Just two weeks ago, he was detained for wearing a rainbow shirt.

We watch the World Cup, listening to television yahoos lavish praise on their Qatari hosts. There was one American soccer journalist who called it how it really is. One journalist who brought attention to the atrocities and the intolerance. And now, that one journalist, who seemed healthy when he entered Qatar three weeks ago, is dead at the age of of 49.

RIP, Grant. Thank you for being the voice of American soccer for two decades. Thank you for your small part in Metro lore.