In terms of skills, no doubt in my mind that Eddie Johnson is in the all-time top 3 list of best fowards. In fact, I could make an argument that he in number one in terms of skills. I think he could have done more in his career and even play in Europe for a first tear team.
Um.....................no. Here's a trivia question for folks: How many goals did Eddie Johnson score against non-CONCACAF teams? Folks of a certain age will be able to name one right away, and that was a penalty. Scoring against CONCACAF teams is great, which Eddie certainly did in World Cup Qualifiers. But you do have to perform in big competitions against elite national teams in games that matter in order to be considered "the best." That's what guys like McBride, Dempsey, and Donovan did.....................all of whom have scored in multiple World Cups. When Eddie Johnson played against Antigua & Barbuda he looked like a monster. Play against a half-decent defense and he looked pretty poor. I'm unconvinced Eddie Johnson would even make the USMNT these days as I consider Altidore, Wood, and Dwyer all better than him. And that's not trying to be unkind too Eddie Johnson. The USMNT is evolving....................... There are a number of really important USMNT players from the past that would struggle to get capped these days. Even guys with >80 caps.
EJ isn't even sure to be top 10 for the US. Altidore, Dempsey, Donovan, McBride, Wynalda, Stewart, Moore, Mathis, Wolff, and even Wood, are all better in my view, although one could debate some of those guys. Hard to judge a guy like Bruce Murray from the more distant past. Is Pulisic a forward?
He scored 19 goals? Dempsey and Donovan are surely 1 and 2 McBride/Wynalda at 3/4....I suppose EJ is in the 5-10 conversation
Please. Make this argument. Seriously? He had his chance at Fulham - he was terrible. I was actually embarrassed for him, for me, and for America while watching him play there. Then he went to second tier Cardiff - he was nicknamed Eddie the Eagle (if you know the reference, you'll know it's not good). How you think he could play in a top tier team is beyond me.
I just read this I'm not sure where you get these ideas....he had a great run 2004-2005 scoring lots of goals, he was the 'next big thing' but after that he never really was a factor...he didn't even make the World Cup teams in 2010 or 2014!
To be fair, he did have a resurgence with Seattle in 2012-2013. He scored 23 goals in 49 league games for them, which is pretty darn good. That led to a return to the USMNT, and he played a pretty big role for us in qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. He got 17 caps in 2013, which is a lot of caps in a calendar year. There were some who suggested that Klinsmann should have picked him for the 2014 World Cup as there were no backups to Altidore on the roster. We ended up playing Dempsey as a lone forward, thus weakening two positions. But to suggest he's one of the top 3 forwards of all time in terms of skill is a step too far. I do think that top 10 is a good spot for him. 19 goals in 63 caps is a goal-scoring rate of 0.30. Goal-scoring rate so far of Bobby Wood? 0.25.
I think he COULD have been if not for constant injuries but no, he wasn't. ETA I heard an interview with him on Sirius maybe 6 months or a year ago and he's working as a coach now specializing in mentoring young players from a similar background to his (rural part of Florida). So it sounds like he's doing good things off the field
So you want evaluate a player (foward) based on number of goals? Stats? This what I call "The Cristiano effect". Anybody that compares Cristiano with Messi (for example) or any other legend like Maradona or Zidane, based on stats, does not have a clue about soccer. But going back to your point, yes..he was not a very prolific scorer however, in terms of ball skills and soccer IQ, he is above Altidore, Eddie Pope, McBride or even the grat Eric Wynalda just to name a few.
Please give me a break.. Today's US squad is a joke next to the previous eras like the one when Johnson played. Does not one recognize that we have regresed to the point that we barely beat Jamaica in the finals?
Yes, and the way that Eddie Johnson bravely led us to victory versus Atigua and Barbuda. He was the best.
Ball skills? Soccer IQ? EJ? What alternative universe am I in? He had poor ball skills. And poor soccer IQ. His greatest trait when he played well was sheer pace and leaping/heading ability.
I don't really know how to respond to that. We can even do a simple comparison of Eddie Johnson and Brian McBride at the same club. They both played for Fulham in the Premier League. Eddie Johnson failed miserably, never scoring a single goal for them. McBride played over 140 games for them, becoming a fan favorite. This is such a crazy conversation that you must be trolling. There's no possible way you believe Eddie Johnson had a higher soccer IQ than guys like McBride. And yes, heading is an actual skill. You will find nobody on this board that think Eddie Johnson was a more skilled player than Brian McBride. Maybe you're young and only saw the 35 year old Brian McBride. I don't know.............
If you had said "athletic ability" you'd have a very good argument to make. If he was 17 years old now, coming up through today's youth development, no telling how good he could have been. (Can say that about a lot of guys, by the way.) But he typified an era of youth development where the fastest kid was always the forward and he was never taught any compensating skills for when the defenses got faster around him. Some guys hit that wall in the mid teens. Eddie hit it in Europe. His youth coaches did him no favors whatsoever