ESPN Analytics: "Dempsey not as lethal as advertised"

Lol. You sound like that's crazy talk, but go ahead and put Donovan's achievements up there. Actually, Clint won the motherloving Gold Cup. Sorry, Clint.

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

I would have said gibberish, but tomato/tomato.

 

k

did well in a youth tournament 13 years ago

was a huge distraction in a good Olympic run in 2000

with a chance to tie Ghana in 2006,passed to Ben Olsen

has been "injured" for most of Klinsmann's regime.

washed out three times in Germany

got dumped by the reason he gave for returning to the US.

still will only cross the pond for short term arrangements.

plays as little defense as possible.

won the championship of a league that hasn't done well in CONCACAF CL for awhile.

clearly is content with that.

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

Not really.

It's actually illustrative to our position in the world game. Clint Dempsey, from an experienced soccer person's perspective is clearly the better overall player. He excels at the elite level in one of the top 4 world leagues while playing with a midtable team.

But that's not really the issue. He plays the game better. Overall, when one takes in the components of a player - technical, mental, psychological, physical - he is the best. Then when one overlays the players accomplishments he becomes clearly the best.

Other players can easily fool you though. At first glance and in every other American sport Didier Drogba is better than David Villa.

But in reality he is not.

 

Based on what? MLS titles aren't easy to come by, because 1) its a team sport, and 2) the playoffs allow for all kinds of strange outcomes.

If you're arguing that Dempsey is superior to Donovan, you're much better off arguing that league titles are a poor metric to judge players by.

The league's quality grew by leaps and bounds in the years after Dempsey left in 2006. It is significantly better and significantly deeper, as the last few years have shown. Hell, LA had Donovan and David Beckham and some fantastic goalkeeping and still did not win titles in 2009 and 2010.

 

as bob mentioned, its not strange intangibles really. there is achievement for your club, and there is achievement on the international stage.

while donovan has achieved more with his club, dempsey has achieved what he has in a higher quality league. to introduce further shades of grey, donovan showed more than well in that same league.

donovan has produced more for us internationally.

no strange intangibles.

if it was as clear as you feel it is, it would actually be clear to a majority of people. its not.

i think the only think that is actually clear, is to say that donovan and dempsey are our current two best field players. beyond that, the waters get murky.

international stats:

player - caps - goals - assists

donovan -138 - 46 - 47
dempsey - 83 - 25 - 9

 

The beauty of this debate is in the "and." Some day we will look back at this time as a luxury to have had both players healthy and in form at the same time. And here's to hoping "some day" is still several years away.

 

There's nothing 'murky' about the issue so long one clearly states his criteria of greatness. Some see MLS achievement as not far off EPL achievement. Some don't. Others see a loan stint as the equivalent of a career. Others don't. Some rate Concacaf accomplishments highly. Others not so much.

Again so long as one is clear on his criteria.

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

Thanks for that. Nice analysis. I have the feeling I've stepped into an emotional long standing argument as a neutral.

Let me hit you with some more "gibberish" about how Dempsey is not clearly the best all-time US player. Yeah, it's a Dempsey thread, but it's still News and Analysis.

National team, Donovan vs Dempsey: Donovan has almost double the goals, almost 5 times the assists, and 55 more caps.

If you want Clint to be the best all-time, you got some 'splaining to do. And he's got some ground to make up at club level. More than a little. Way more. Better tolerance for shitty weather isn't getting it done for me. Yet.

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

Simply repeating yourself is not a good riposte...

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

I don't need a riposte. What we need is a riposte to almost double the goals and more than 5 times the assists at international level. Still waiting.

 

Food for thought. Since January 2007:

Donovan - 54 caps, 21 goals (10 PKs), 24 assists
Dempsey - 60 caps, 18 goals, 6 assists

Since June 27, 2010:

Donovan - 11 caps, 1 goal, 2 assists
Dempsey - 17 caps, 6 goals, 1 assist

If we're strictly comparing international play, 2006 and 2011 are the only years I would give to Dempsey. Right now, he looks like a heavy favorite for 2012 though.

 

various individual value systems is exactly what makes it murky. there is no defined criteria, hence murky individual interpretations.

your general position seems to be built on your perspective and criteria being the only valid one. it is to you, but not to the discussion at large, or the awarding of "best player" title.

i think a player could be in the discussion for best player if he were to do great things for his country in international play, but be mediocre for his club. i don't think the opposite is true.

 

No. The problem is just people repeating themselves without any context. There is no 'correct' and 'only valid' criteria. The point is to reason clearly that is all, and to not pretend that repeating a point is advancing anything.

You have posters who keep bloviating on Donovan's overall numbers. Everyone knows the numbers. Not everyone values the triumphs against the likes of honduras jamaica venezuala el salavador canada cuba panama and barbados so much.

 

The problem is you're saying besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

And she keeps repeating the same thing. It never goes away.

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

Sorry if I offended with my terse and rather harsh post. I was mainly looking for a reason to change the thread title to something more appropriate.

I think that the difference between their respective club performances is as much in Dempsey's favor as that disparity between their country performances is in Donovan's favor.

Or as someone said in another thread; we are splitting hairs between two phenomenal players, either of which would clearly and unequivocally be the greatest American field player if the other did not exist. I lean towards Dempsey, but I can certainly see an argument for Donovan.

Is that more like analysis?

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

This would be the thing to talk about then. Not sure people are up for it.

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

That would be a good conversation. I'm game.

Dempsey still is clearly a better overall player in my mind. For me it's easy to see when I watch them both play on the same pitch. They are very different players and typically the team is set up to work more for Donovan's style of play than Dempsey's. He has produced against the grain.

And I would wager Clint is far more valuable at the moment to a serious Champion's/Europa league club than Landon is. Then there's the Confederations Cup Bronze Ball, which may have turned gold had we won (conjecture, of course).

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

I'm seeing 142 MLS goals for Donovan in 11 seasons, and 26 for Dempsey in 3. That's 13 per for Donovan and 9 per for Clint. Dempsey has 59 in 6 for Fulham, so far, avg 10/season, high season of 22 (so far). Donovan has 2 in 21 games for Everton, which is about half a season.

PL (and Europa, FA cup) goals count a lot higher than MLS goals. Donovan is averaging over 10-12 or more appearances less per season at LA than Dempsey at Fulham.

We can add in Donovan's failures in the Bundesliga, but that he was so young on the first and we're talking about Bayern Munich on the second, I'd say those don't get counted either positive or negative, when Dempsey stuck at one PL team. And I know people don't like it, but Donovan's relative success at Everton does mean something in this comparison. Not much, but something.

I look at all that, and Dempsey does have a better club career, but is it enough better to cancel out the vast international difference? Right now I say no.

Sure, we can pick a year like 2007 and say since then it's close internationally, but starting early and having longevity counts. This is an all-time decision we're talking about.

So Dempsey can still add a lot to his club career. If he succeeds dramatically at a Bayern level club or even if he just keeps replicating this season at Fulham. I'm not sure how much Donovan is going to add to his, besides just padding his numbers.

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

Reasonable points. So let's see.

I'm less inclined to count international results as highly due to the fact that the team has always been built around Landon and the fact that he takes the penalties. Also, it would seem that having a more difficult day to day experience would adversely affect one's ability to produce in friendly and less important national team matches due to travel, fatigue, etc.

Mind you, international soccer is still more important to me than club when we're talking USA.

It will be interesting to see how well Landon does under Klinsmann. And as you say Clint seems poised for one more move up the ladder, while Landon seems set. If Clint makes the move and does well, it would end the discussion for me.

 

Re: ESPN Analytics: "ESPN not as analytical as advertised"

This seems to be the dividing line. If you think being the best player, on the best team, in a bad league (from a global perspective), is anywhere near as great an accomplishment as being the best player, on an average team, in the best, or second best league in the world than choosing Donovan is a no brainier.

If you feel like I do, that the quality of the comparative leagues is the heart of the argument, rather than one of many various details, than choosing Dempsey is sensible.

 

Internationally, Dempsey scores .301 non-PK goals/game and registers .108 assists/game, while Donovan scores .239 non-PK goals/game (.333 including penalties) and registers .34 assists/game.

At the Premier League level over each players' respective past two seasons in the league (here we run into sample size problems), Dempsey has scored .397 goals/game (.411 including penalties) and registered .117 assists/game, while Donovan has scored .117 goals/game and registered .352 assists/game. You could give Donovan a slight boost as well for the lack of time he was given to adapt to the league or familiarize himself with his teammates.

If the question is which one has had a more successful club or international career, that's going to be dependent on the amount of time Dempsey has spent in Europe and the amount of time that Donovan has spent on the national team. But just in terms of quality, it's clear that Dempsey is a considerable goal-scoring threat at the club and international level and that Donovan generates a high level of goal-scoring opportunities at any level. Those stats also indicate that it's not that easy to make an apples to apples comparison. If I were to give it a shot from the numbers alone, I might give a slight edge to Donovan but it's a lot closer either way than some people are willing to acknowledge.

 

When you're talking careers though, that last two years comparison in the PL doesn't really work, as this is nowhere near a typical year for Dempsey. Donovan had 2 goals in his (yeah, small sample size) first (and only) 22 appearances for Everton. Dempsey had 7 in his first 52. Again, apples to oranges because Dempsey was a rookie and although Donovan was a PL rook, he was a veteran pro player, unlike Clint who only had 2 MLS seasons under his belt.

And just like Dempsey has being getting it done over time in the PL, those GPG internationally for Donovan are with 5 more years of international appearances than Dempsey, this time when Donovan was very young.

So yeah, it's not massively one way or the other, overall.

That accumulation of goals (and assists) on the international level means something though, beyond the GPG percentage. Longevity counts, and Donovan started what, 4 years earlier than Dempsey? Looks like they scored their first goal 5 years apart. Not a big deal, but the cumulative totals matter.

The goal scoring is important because Dempsey is getting his rep through goal scoring. Somebody like Maradona wasn't the top goalscorer for his country, but he was a playmaker. Somebody like Messi gets his international play scrutinized, and rightly so, but he's still 5th all time for Argentina at age 24. He has a lot of time. Clint is making his name as a goal scorer, but at 29 he needs to keep climbing that ladder internationally also, and he will.

 

That is your piece of evidence? Citing the "consensus" GOAT player who played in the era before player's moved internationally?

I like both Deuce and Donovan (though i've grown to appreciate the former more with time) but I think using Pele in the way that you have is just anachronistic. It's like comparing FDR's media presence and strategy to the current President's.

 

I don't agree that achievement = best in a set ratio. Achivement = Best x a multitude of other factors. Achievement is a function of being better than others to one degree or another, plus all those pesky other factors.

To decide who's the best the question is who would perform better against a similar quality of opponent.

I do agree that penalties should be discounted, and penalties drawn factored in, but it should also be noted that Donovan is a better penalty taker.

So to answer the criteria set out for who is the best I think both of them have shown that they can perform at the highest level. Dempsey has better shown that he can do it week in, week out over a season but Donovan has stepped up and performed at that level (International play and his EPL loan stints and to a lesser degree MLS playoffs) so many times that a fair minded person would say he can be regularly successful at that level because he, simply put, has been. So right now to me Dempsey is better at scoring and Landon better at creating, but neither are weak at either. I value both. It's like choosing between David Villa and David Silva or Zidane and Ronaldo. Dempsey is having the best club season by an American, ever. If he does that repeatedly he will go down as the best.


Anyone see this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2012/04/16/clint-dempsey-a-case-of-irrational-exuberance/

Don't totally agree, I think Dempsey is going to age well and he'd take Arteta's spot instead of one of the winger's. Although if Yossi can play there so can Clint.