Why dempsey has surpassed donovan

Inside the numbers: Dempsey ties Donovan. UCL, bloody hell - When first-leg wins aren't enough. PL numbers - City's 14 trumps Liverpool's 30 and Numbers: Pogba's best-ever season, Sterling's magic touch. Numbers: Messi , Salah 50, Lewa Ole 1, Vardy , Kane , Lewandowski , Messi Numbers: Chelsea's huge defeat, Aguero's record hat-trick. Numbers: Messi reaches , Dave saves Man United. Numbers: Ronaldo's missed 50, flying reds, another PogBrace. Numbers: Messi's 43rd hat trick, Ronaldo gets Juve's th.

Numbers: Messi's free-kick record, Lukaku ends home rut. By the numbers: Ronaldo equals year-old record. Weekend numbers: Another record for Ronaldo. If you accept that premise, you come to a disturbing conclusion: While we sat around waiting for the breakthrough, we were actually watching the revolution.

And the next one might be further away than we expect. Skip to main content Skip to navigation. PSG's Diallo released amid probe into attack. Rampant Russia crush Cyprus in WC qualifier. North Macedonia rout Armenia to boost World Cup hopes. Sweden stumble on road to WC with Georgia loss. PL to restart season 8 days after Qatar WC final.

Kane: Euros final haunts me, not failed City move. Battle of the Leagues final: Premier League or Ligue 1 to win it all? Australia stalemate a setback for World Cup qualification hopes. Gerrard hired by Villa, club that denied him dream Liverpool farewell. Australia play out stalemate vs. Saudi Arabia. Jul 17, Example No2: The "one player removed" assist or involvement. The example here is the 7 June, game against Canada in which Donovan played Altidore into the right side of the box in a perfect position.

Altidore then passed the ball to Dempsey. This involvement is more akin to a hockey assist. Without Donovan slotting in Altidore, there would be no goal from that play. Example No3: The involvement in the play assist.

The example here is the England World Cup game in which the ball is played in the air to Donovan. He backs into the marking defensive player and jumps for the ball forcing the defensive header that drops to Dempsey who then does all the work and scores. This is a play involvement-type assist. It would never be noted in the game as an assist, however a header there does not fall to Dempsey for the speculative shot.

Without Donovan pressing his man, there is no goal in that specific situation from Dempsey. The first problem with comparing Stockton and Malone to Dempsey and Donovan, is that Dempsey and Donovan have only played 20 games together. Stockton and Malone played 1, regular season games together. Also, the metrics between basketball and soccer are inevitably skewed as scoring in soccer is at a premium whereas in basketball it is frequent and expected.

In Stockton's best assist game ever 28 assists in the 15 January, game against the San Antonio Spurs the stats analysis of the day didn't keep track of how many assists went to Malone, only that Stockton was responsible for So reasonably the stats are not going to allow us to look directly at them for a comparison.

Perhaps a better comparison would be some tandems in modern soccer that are directly comparable. No1: Must not have played together on a club team in this fashion we don't have familiarity. No2: One player must be more a facilitator that scores the other a scorer who some times facilitates.

Some famous and more contemporary suggestions given to me from the front office of The Shin Guardian were:. Henry and Ronaldo were too cast in the mold of "out and out strikers" to be contrasted against Dempsey.

Xavi and Iniesta play with each other at Barcelona and this breeds familiarity, really this is a problem with any examples from the Spanish national team.