Salute to Clint Dempsey
Clint Dempsey is the best American soccer player ever, even better than Landon Donovan, but Dempsey’s skill and career remain underrated.
The Texan has displayed a level of advanced technical ability and creativity that no other American soccer player has ever displayed. American soccer still hasn’t produced many players who can smoothly execute individual skill against elite opponents in a game setting.
Even at 33 years old, Dempsey’s skill level, speed, and fitness suggest that he might still be in his prime.
Many observers still view Dempsey as inferior to Landon Donovan in skill and accomplishments on the field, and that’s unfair. Dempsey is often praised for his toughness and will to win, and while these are indeed great qualities of his, they neglect to mention his skill, creativity, consistency, and effectiveness. At his core, Dempsey is a player whose play is based on technical skill with the ball and the ability to display above average technical qualities against top competition.
While many of the American soccer players are essentially just hustle players and mentally strong players, Dempsey has always displayed a comfort and mastery with the ball that American players have normally lacked compared to players in Europe and Latin America. He has also showed more hustle and more mental toughness than his American counterparts.
The real gap between American soccer players and their better counterparts in Europe and Latin America is the absence of the first touch and overall ball skills to play smoother and faster.
With these real gaps between American soccer and the better varieties in mind, it puts Dempsey’s accomplishments and abilities in the right perspective. Consistently displaying refined and advanced technical ability along with a real talent at avoiding injuries is a real achievement.
There have been multiple interviews about Dempsey’s childhood and hard road to becoming a professional soccer player in the United States and in the United Kingdom, but a strong argument can be made that Dempsey really is underrated and underappreciated by American fans and journalists. Fans and journalists outside of the United States sometimes scoff at Dempsey for being good by not quite elite, but their standard is essentially a logical fallacy where unless Dempsey is a top player for one of only a few elite European clubs, then he is just mediocre in those critics’ eyes.
By any standard, Dempsey is a creative and technically-skilled attacking player who can dribble, pass, and score against top competition, and he’s displayed a facility at playing with both feet and scoring with his head. Elite club teams and national teams were never able to intimidate and psych out Dempsey as he routinely showed them zero respect.
Returning to the Donovan comparison, even the biggest Donovan homer must admit that Dempsey has a better club playing resume where he played in a better league (the EPL) against better competition. He also has an almost identical goal-scoring rate and tally as Donovan at the international level, and Dempsey can’t be accused of ever playing small or being bullied by opposing players and teams.
When Dempsey retires in several years, he deserves to be recognized as not only the most accomplished American soccer player ever but also the most talented and technical player. American soccer has seen Donovan or Tab Ramos, but neither of them displayed the level of technical skill and creativity that Dempsey not only showcased but showcased consistently for over a decade.
What really made Dempsey a pioneer for American soccer was how everyone could see that this player represented a new level of skill with the ball for American players. Dempsey proved that American players could be creative, technical, and effective even against world-class competition. That’s what Dempsey gave American soccer fans and players: the proof that Americans could be players that people in other countries recognized as truly skilled.
In the video included with this post is an interview that Clint Dempsey did with Colin Cowherd, and it’s perhaps the most illuminating Dempsey interview as Dempsey normally doesn’t say too much in his interviews.