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| Clint Dempsey has made magic at Fulham, if he can do so at Liverpool he could change U.S. Soccer forever. |
There have been two players in the history of the United States Men's National Soccer Team that have played for an elite, top-tier, "everyone knows them, even Americans" type club side. Both were failed experiments. One was Tim Howard playing for Manchester United from 2003 to 2005. He had initial success making some big saves in big moments, but a gaffe in the '04 Champions League sent Howard's confidence spiraling out of control. Eventually he was replaced by Edwin van der Sar, and was sent on loan to Everton where he remains today. The other was monster center back Oguchi Onyewu who signed with AC Milan in '09, but never appeared in a league game due to his slow-footed nature and a devastatingly gross knee injury that may have derailed his career entirely.
Now, let me make it clear. There are a ton of U.S. players playing abroad, and a solid amount of them are having success at their respective clubs. However, the names Aston Villa, Fulham, Everton, AZ Alkmaar and AS Roma don't exactly resonate with the casual American soccer fan and are especially foreign to those that only care about U.S. soccer during the World Cup. Now the name Liverpool on the other hand is pretty well known to any American sports fan. They might not know anyone who plays on them, or anything about their history, but they damn sure know that they're a good, powerful, almost universal soccer club.
That's where Clint Dempsey comes into play. Dempsey(and I'm sorry to any Landon Donovan lovers here) has clearly shown that he is the best American soccer player, and will probably go down as the greatest ever after he breaks Donovan's records somewhere down the line. Dempsey plays for Fulham, who is a well known middle-of-the-pack premiership team, sort of like the Atlanta Hawks; they're often good, just never that good. This season they finished ninth and Dempsey led them in scoring with 25 goals, 17 of which were in the Premiership good enough to tie him for fourth with the likes of established superstars Emmanuel Adebayor and Yakubu. After posting the greatest premiership season of his career, and the greatest premiership campaign in the history of United States soccer, Liverpool has come calling.
Weeks ago there were rumblings that Liverpool were pushing to make a legitimate offer to Fulham, but Fulham thought Liverpool were trying to low ball them (something along those lines). Nothing has been clearly reported concerning the negotiations other than it hasn't happened. But it absolutely must happen, for the state of U.S. Soccer and for the state of Clint Dempsey's legacy which could go down as the first breakthrough American soccer player the world's ever going to see.
A Dempsey-to-Liverpool move would be monumental for the world of United States Soccer. Dempsey, as I said earlier, is the best player America has to offer and if he can get himself to Liverpool, doors can open for USA players we never thought possible. He would join a midfield of Steven Gerrard and Luis Suarez, you're talking about one of the greatest English players of all-time and a guy in Suarez, who at times, is one of the best in the game. Dempsey's game would surely reach unprecedented heights and I think he would fit in perfectly with manager Brendan Rogers control-the-ball system.
But the simple news of Dempsey heading to the American-owned Liverpool (Fenway Group), I think would be enough to get people really excited. Casual fans saying, "Wait, one of our guys is on Liverpool? And he's going to start? Wow, that's unreal." Don't even get me started if he goes out there and becomes the folk hero he has become at Fulham. Success at Liverpool will catapult the likes of Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley and co. into similar ranks simply because managers won't be scared off by the stories of failure produced by so many Americans before. Honestly it'll just be nice for U.S. soccer to have some credibility, to have one of it's players starting at Liverpool. The thought just makes me giddy like a school child.
If Fulham does what it might do an choke away Dempsey's dream to play for a major club for a extra million or two, then it'll be devastating to him and it will just suck for America. So please, Fulham just let us Americans have our shot to take Liverpool by storm.
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