Late Saturday, an hour after Sporting Kansas City defeated Portland, the home locker room had mostly emptied by the time Graham Zusi finished his postgame treatment. He approached his locker, where a couple of birthday cards were waiting.
Thirty-two.
Zusi was just 22 years old when this journey began, a wide-eyed young man from Florida hoping to make a living playing a kid’s game. A decade later, after MLS trophies, a shelf full of accolades and international appearances on the world’s biggest stage, Zusi now calls Kansas City his home, the birth of the brightest days of his career.