What a player, what a will. As a Revs season ticket holder, I got to hear folks wondering why we drafted him so high and then watch as coach Nicol changed our base formation to make room for him on the field. Clint wasn't a wing midfielder (his first starting postion), he wasn't a lone forward, what was he? Nicol said the same thing so many other coaches eventually figured out; "You have to find a way to get him on the field." (I'm paraphrasing here...) I remember watching him on TV getting hammered, physically abused, by England in his first international game. He was just so naive about that level of the game, but I knew he'd figure it out. I was fortunate enough to be in the stadium for his 2006 goal against Ghana. Take care Clint, I wish you well and thank you for all the memories. Speaking of captains and well wishes, I'm not holding my breath for a Joey Franchino congratulations to Clint post!!
An old tribute ... https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/clint-dempsey-this-ones-for-you.409369/ With the refrain (that pretty much wrote itself): Bad deals You gotta live 'em every day Let the broken jaws stand As the price you've gotta pay We'll keep pushin' till it's understood And MLS starts treating us good {From Springsteen's Badlands, of course}
LD was the King of Concacaf, no doubt. They were both World Class international attackers, but Deuce's major tournament performances give him the edge.
Thank you for intentionally skying that 90th minute PK against Mexico to preserve our "dos a cero." What a fantastic f- you. I feel sorry for the fish in Texas.
These are the 2 greatest players in USA history. Of this there is no doubt. International Goals: Advantage Dempsey Dempsey: 57 goals in 141 caps Donovan: 57 goals in 157 caps International Assists: Big Advantage Donovan Dempsey: 21 Donovan: 58 World Cup Goals: Advantage: Neither Dempsey: 2006 (1), 2010 (1), 2014 (2) Total: 4 Donovan: 2002 (2), 2006 (0), 2010 (3) Total: 5 Note: Dempsey drew a penalty against Ghana in 2010, but Donovan took the penalty and scored. This is why Donovan has 5 WC goals and Dempsey 4. Donovan with the goose egg in 2006. WCQ Goals: Advantage Dempsey Dempsey: 18 goals from 41 games Donovan: 13 goals from 40 games Dempsey with the better strike rate, but Donovan was the better passer. Dempsey had a better club career, simply because he played at a much higher level. Donovan was the better athlete, but Dempsey played with more desire. Jozy Altidore isn't going to catch either one.
That time when, as related by @alecko11, Deuce rolled into his first USMNT camp and bossed everybodyhttps://t.co/x69eWREnWM pic.twitter.com/XVPiWaIgU9— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) August 29, 2018
I didn't want to believe what I was saying either, lol, but as I looked at it, here's what I came up with: Donovan's impact: '02 Vs Portugal in '02 Vs Poland in '02 (disallowed goal that should've been allowed and played a key role in us falling behind 2-0 while the goal/no goal was being argued) Vs Mexico in '02 (put the game away) Vs Germany in 02 (nearly put Germany away multiple times in the first half hour, but failed too) '06: Vs Czech's: No Impact Vs Italy: Ran his butt off with us down a man, though no place on score sheet. Vs Ghana: Probably his worst world cup performance. '10: Vs England: I don't remember. Vs Slovenia: Played the catalyst in dragging us back into the game immediately after halftime Vs Algeria: Scored the viral moment goal in injury time Vs Ghana: Scored the PK that helped force extra time (don't remember the rest) Dempsey: '06: Vs Ghana: Scored the equalizer '10: Vs England: Scored the equalizer Vs Slovenia: Honestly I can't remember Vs Algeria: Wrongly disallowed goal which would've won game, his shot rebounded to Donovan for the winning goal in injury time. Vs Ghana: Was it him who won the PK? '14: Vs Ghana: Scored the opener right after the whistle. Vs Portugal: Scored the goal that should've won us the game. Vs Germany: I can't remember Vs Belgium: Came within 1 iffy touch away of scoring the tying goal in extra time. I think Donovan clearly had more moments, but otoh, Dempsey didn't have a bad world cup, Donovan did ('06), Dempsey played a role in virtually every World Cup game he played in (I can't remember his impact vs Slovenia, or vs Germany: not sure if he had won in either game in '10 and '14), maybe all of them, I can't remember. Donovan had diappearing act games (vs the Czech's, vs Ghana in '06 in which he was actually actively bad, even inexplicably throwing away a scoring chance in the 2nd half, in '10 I don't remember him impacting the game vs England either but I may remember wrong, after that he was everywhere vs Slovenia and Algeria, against Ghana he scored the PK, but I missed a bunch of that game so I can't speak to it). Its such a funny comparison because the players just impacted things so differently. Dempsey almost always left his autograph on a game and a tournament, Donovan didn't, but Donovan often had a spectacularly heavy impact on the final result, good or bad: Vs Portugal: his cross that went off the back of a Portugal player won that game. Vs Poland his goal being disallowed cost us the game as it ended up being like a pick 6 in pro football (we score, disallowed, they score going the other way while a bunch of our players are slow getting back because they're screaming at the ref) Vs Mexico: Killed the game w/that run and goal. Vs Germany: His performance helped energize the team, but his failure to finish his chances (I think 3 excellent one) also helped cost us a chance to achieve our greatest WC accomplishment ever. Vs Czech's and Vs Ghana: Reyna's presence seemed to neuter him against the Czech's, and he was actively bad against Ghana. People point to a heroic performance against Italy which I flat out can't remember (all I remember is white knuckling the 1-1 score for 45 minutes, and immense frustration at losing a man advantage and turning it into a disadvantage, and disagreeing with one of the player toss off's (it felt emphatically like the ref was desperate to even up the dismissal's, and Pablo and was it Pope, gave him the opportunity he needed). Vs Slovenia: He's why we won that game (the CAF ref was either paid off, or too stubborn to reverse a call he knew was wrong (I tend to go with the latter, I think he pulled a phil luckett, accidentally said the reverse of what he intended, then refused to walk it back. Nothing else other than corruption makes sense after you see the still's leading up to the goal where there appears to be something on the order of 7 or 8 PK worthy fouls on Slovenia, none of which were called, instead, we're called, and he never explains it: that strikes me as either corruption, or him accidentally calling it on the wrong team, luckett style, then refusing to change it out of embarrassment). Vs Algeria: He won us the game. Vs Ghana: Clutch PK under enormous pressure. It's weird, there were games he left a huge imprint on (vs Poland, Vs Germany in '02, maybe vs Germany in '06 (people I trust say that), vs Slovenia and Algeria in '10), but then you have the games where he was invisible or I just cant remember any impact at all (vs South Korea, vs the Czech's, Vs Ghana, maybe vs England). Then you look at Dempsey, he played in 9 total games compared to Donovan's 12, but what games was Dempsey invisible or irrelevant? Off the top of my head, maybe vs Slovenia (I can't remember). For a guy who had a habit of having a huge impact, or none at all in US games typically, at the World Cup he seemed to show up in every single game in some way or other, always. Even in 2014 when he fell off the scoresheet vs Germany and Belgium, he still had a huge impact because he was the only attacking player we had on the field that Germany or Belgium were even remotely worried about to any degree whatsoever freeing up other players for a handful of chances. Its one of those really hard debates, they're impact was distinctly different in flavor and tone, and yet they both had an equal impact on games (if they were on their game we almost always won, if one or both weren't, we weren't going to win), they finish even on goals, and yet the feel they both left on team was both immense and yet totally, totally different. I love that they tied on goals because it fits the theme perfectly. We'd be nowhere without them the past sixteen years, and leave either of them off teams, and their was a gaping hole in the chemistry, and flavor of the side. It's not a coincidence that in the dying moments of total humiliation in Couva, it was Dempsey who came within a whisker of scoring, not Bradley, not Altidore, just Dempsey. Have a feeling we are never going to hear from him again. He'll disappear to go fishing, or whatever, and raise his kids and leave coaching, media appearances etc to others.
Dempsey was great. Donovan was great. People who want to turn a retirement announcement into a tribal war suck.
If you remember the Confed Cup, you've got to pull up that goal vs Egypt. We needed to win 3-0 and have Brazil beat Italy 3-0 and it happened and Dempsey had an absolute monster of a goal to make it 3-0.
Just FWIW, Donovan was really not very good against Algeria and Ghana in 2010; the goals masked some pretty mediocre performances (although, goals have a habit of doing that). On the other hand, Donovan was great against England and Slovenia, and Clint was pretty anonymous against England (other than the goal) and was lucky to not get kicked out within 10 seconds against Slovenia. He was good against Algeria and excellent against Ghana. But yeah, honestly they were both great. 1 and 1a and there are no wrong answers for who goes where.
The best part of that, 21 matches in major elite tournaments, and he scored 10 goals,, registered 4 assists, and he drew a penalty (basically almost an 11th goal based on PK success rates in game). That's just absurd.
They're just tied together. I thought Donovan was great all around in 2010, but he might have never scored those goals if Dempsey had been red carded for that elbow in the 1st minute against Slovenia. Similarly, Dempsey scored some iconic goals in 2014, but he could have done even more if there was a facilitator like Donovan in the lineups that year.
Gotta love those chuckleheads. Might warrant mentioning that while England was tanking World Cup after World Cup, and Euro after Euro, Dempsey was scoring in every major tournament and at a .5 per game rate compared to their supposed stars.
He is definitely 1 player who did NOT deserve to go out like we did at T&T. He deserved far better. Thanks Clint for all you did.
Few internationals of his era, from any country, can match his record or the equivalent, especially when taking into account the elo-rankings of the countries he has tallied against..
In reference to a different post. I don't see much in the way of taking down one guy or the other, just people evaluating their performances because they're so uniquely important to virtually everything that's happened since '02 (Donovan) and '06 (Dempsey). It's difficult to figure out if one or the other was more crucial. In reference to Donovan and Dempsey and goals in bad games: that's a difficult thing to evaluate. You can play badly for 89 minutes, but have 1 minute where you do everything right and you score, and in a game where scorring opportunities are so rare, that 1 minute of glory changes it from a bad game, to a, well, something. I'm not sure what you call it, because I don't think it can be a bad game, in the same way say, Donovan vs Ghana in '06 was a bad game.
The sad part of being a USMNT fan is that we can compare Donovan's 2014 WC with Dempsey's 2018 WC and still can't decide...
Dempsey was invisible the whole 2006 World Cup besides the Ghana game. lol 2010 against England, he had that weak goal. Didn’t do much. Slovenia was invisible. Did he even play? That is 2 of the 4 games there. 2014 He was excellent for the most part. Landon Donovan had a bad 2006 World Cup for the most part but man he was really good in the 2010 World Cup. He put the team on his freaken back a few times. 2002 he won young player of the tournament. He was excellent also. Landon Donovan had a greater impact on the USA team and it’s not close. Name one player that Clint Dempsey made better. Landon Donovan elevated teammates. That’s why he 50+ assists. Dempsey was a great goal scorer. But that’s all he did. Donovan did so much more.
It’s sad that our 2 best players had endings to the National Team that were not fair. Landon Donovan getting cut was virtually laughable. Juergen Klinsman should have been fired then. Any other coach in any other sport would have for doing that. He should have started in that World Cup. He was better than others that started. If he stayed fit, he probably could still been a top 23 player for Russia. Clint Dempsey’s last memory is hitting the post against Trinidad. He came off the bench and was still our second best player in that game behind Pulisic. Both deserved to be in Russia. Donovan and Dempsey got raw deals. At least Donovan got a send off match. I was there. It was better than nothing. Dempsey should get one also if he wants to. I wonder if he would play against Brazil or Mexico to say goodbye to fans? It’s probably to late now but that would have been cool.