Clint Dempsey is clearly not the player that we all knew 5-10 years ago.
Dempsey has uncharacteristically been struggling for form this season
He is now 35-years-old and it has been more than 40 days since he last found the back of the net for the Seattle Sounders in Major League Soccer.
Many regard Dempsey as being one of the greatest American attacking players of the past generation, if not the greatest. Those who do not feel that he deserves this tag usually feel that Landon Donovan was more gifted.
There is a strong case to be made that Dempsey will bow out as the greatest American soccer player in history
However, there is a strong case to be made that it was Dempsey who was the better of the duo. Dempsey experienced success where Donovan failed, in a sense that he experienced success in Europe for the then modest Fulham.
To date, he still remains the Cottagers highest ever Premier League goal scorer, with 50 goals in the English top-flight.
The epitome of Dempsey’s career was perhaps during the 2011-12 Premier League season, during which he was the fourth highest scorer in the English top-flight with 17 goals to his name, behind only modern day legends of the game in Robin Van Persie, Wayne Rooney and Sergio Aguero.
His form that season led to interest from Liverpool and an eventual move to Tottenham, where he had a decent season before moving on to Seattle Sounders in the MLS after one term.
Apart from two loan spells with Everton in 2010 and 2012, Donovan’s spells in Europe with the likes of Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich can be deemed failures.
It can also be argued that the former LA Galaxy man took the easy way out by opting to spend the majority of his career in the MLS.
Dempsey’s game time for Seattle is decreasing and the end of his career is probably near. He is, after all, a three-time US soccer athlete of the year and US Soccer athlete of the year, Rookie of the year and was also part of the 2009 Confederations Cup XI, as the US shockingly beat Spain 2-0 during the semi-finals, to progress to the final where they were beaten 3-2 by Brazil.
With 57 international goals to his name, Dempsey is the all-time joint national team record scorer (tied with Donovan), it will only be fitting that he be given one last farewell game for his country to try and break the record.
It would be a fitting way for ”Deuce”, as he is affectionately known, to bow out.
