Walker Zimmerman’s USMNT journey How faith and fortitude helped him become America’s best center-back

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The rainfall is biblical, a discordant symphony against car hoods and pavement. Beyond the trembling Geodis Park overhangs, lightning spiderwebs an onyx sky. Shirtless teenagers puddle-jump down Bransford Avenue, their soaked tees helicoptering above their heads in improvisational defiance.

Huddling in the Nashville SC locker room, 2020 and 2021 MLS Defender of the Year Walker Zimmerman, 29, waits like a bottled firefly. He’s 6-foot-3 and ropy, with the shaggy facial hair and hazel-flecked blues of a lost Hemsworth. A three-hour weather delay — against rival Atlanta United and for a sellout crowd of 31,109, no less — belies his unrelenting motion.

His parents, David and Becky, flew in from Athens, Georgia. Walker was bound for USMNT camp in a week, so they drove north with friends and their two boys, who had designs on Walker signing their Zimmerman jerseys. Becky’s sisters were inbound, too, excited for the pyrotechnics and Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” preceding the national anthem and their family’s quasi-reunion.

Zimmerman and his wife, Sally, offered to host brunch the following morning, but nature is obstinate. Journalists count lightning strikes and stream the NBA playoffs in the press box. A speedy pitch-invader gets blindsided by a steward around 9 p.m. local time, but in the bowels of the stadium, Zimmerman waits, the rare center-back who’s bruising and patient in equal measure.

To date, Zimmerman has played his entire professional career in the United States. When drafted by FC Dallas in 2013, he beamed about going where he was…