A super-skilled HAT-TRICK at 34-years old after enduring a potential life threatening and career ending irregular heart beat, are you freaking kidding me?
I don't know about best player ever but I do know a lot of people gave up on him prior to the Copa saying he should just hang 'em up. Then the whole heart thing gave them more fuel for the fire. Now they better be quiet for another couple years. In my mind he should be a starter not only in Russia but until he just can play anymore.
You can certainly say that Dempsey played with a lot of heart, as well as had his heart on his sleeve. *BigSoccer starts throwing tomatoes at Master O.*
Donovan's still ahead. It was his team for a decade. Huge part of the best US WC ever. Almost triple the assists of the second place player.
I think Dempsey's longevity if it continues really pushes him up there. Guess it was always inevitable that Dempsey, living on skill and guile, would last longer than Donovan, who relied so much on his speed and explosiveness. I'll still take a peak form Donovan over Clint, but Clint's ability to do it into his later years isn't to be ignored.
Wasn't he a top 5 player in the epl one season with 17 goals as a midfielder on a below average team?.
Dempsey has been the US' all-time best field player for quite a while now. Had the only goal for the team in the disaster that was WC'06. Bronze Ball for CC'09. A goal against England and drawn pk against Ghana, the only two decent sides the US faced in WC '10. 2 goals in WC 14. 3 goals and 3 assists in the Copa! The only attacker to produce in every major tourney in which he has played(min of 3) In these major tournaments, he has played center-forward, support forward, and wide midfield, creating goals from each of those positions.
I look at an interesting time period, these past 5 months.. Dempsey came back after heart problem to help usa for WC18 and Donovan retired again. Donovan also has allot more penalty kick goals.
Dempsey has 31 goals in 49 games for usa since 2012. That's around altidore and wynalda amount but they did it in 100+ games and they both are strikers only. Dempsey also has shown up to every tournament he was expected to star in. According to ussoccer.com, some of Donovan most prolific stat games were games against Cuba, Trinidad, el Salvador, etc. It would not surprise me that Dempsey's influence against top teams has been more consistent. Btw, Dempsey has 16 goals in his last 21 USMNT games as a 32-34 year old. That's outrageous. And I always had Donovan #1, but Dempsey has played out of his mind in USMNT's worst period since the 1980's.
1) Non-pk goals/ non-pk goals per game: Dempsey 49. / (.37) Donovan 42 / (.27) 2) Total non-pk goals & assists vs non-concacaf opponents/ per game%: Donovan: 28 (15 G+ 13A) in 60 games/ (47%) Dempsey: 27 (21 G+ 6A) in 58 games / (47%) These guys are dead even from the run of play outside the concacaf comfort zone. Dempsey has two games left vs non-concacaf to register a point and either tie or over-take Donovan %-wise.
Yep. Dempsey's definitely our best goal scorer ever, but what set Donovan apart was his ability to dictate the game and elevate the play of his teammates in a way that Dempsey never really could. This is all in a sense moot, however, as barring injury, Pulisic will fairly soon eclipse them all. Where Donovan and Howard (and Friedel, though he didn't contribute to us for very long) stood on the threshold of "World Class quality," and Dempsey didn't quite but nonetheless fought himself to similar stature, Pulisic already has "it," and is already in the position in his career to exploit it.
A key thing we forget is the effects all those trans-Atlantic flights had on our Euro based stars. Since we had definitely more matches (especially friendlies at home or in CONCACAF than in Europe), it surely affected Dempsey in some ways. Not to mention Donovan got loads of scoring chances in the winter camp against weakened CONCACAF or B squad Euro nations.
great comeback for him!!! it's sad to think WC18 will be his last one ever. I doubt we'll see a 39 year old Dempsey in 2022. well at least he'll go out of the NT becoming the all time top scorer.
LD's major tournament numbers don't match Dempsey's. Also, Dempsey has been on some successful teams. Revolution made MLS Cup. Fulham made the Europa League finals. Spurs had their highest ever point total up to that time. The NT made CC finals and the Copa Semis. He has driven successful performances.
Donovan got it done in some Gold Cups and he did play out of his mind in 2002/2010 but Dempsey has seemingly has an outstanding performance at every tournament. I firmly feel DEMPSEY is the face of the modern US footballer. With younger guys like Wood and Pulisic, this feels great.