http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896...erest-from-many-clubs-including-arsenal-clint Apparently Arsenal enquired about Clint Dempsey, but were put off by the £10m price tag. It sounds like Clint is happy to stay, but maybe he's still here because none of the interest turned into a hard offer. Whatever the truth is about how willing he was to go or to stay, it's good that we've still got him. Reading between the lines, if no new contract is signed he could be off in the summer to avoid losing him a year later on a free. My guess is that the powers that be at the club will be preparing for life without him and working out how to maximise his transfer value to the club when he does go.
I think Arsenal would have to change their style of play to get the best out of Clint. He tends to ghost in and out of play, and doesn't have that great a passing game. He has the knack of creating space for himself, and he is unpredictable in a good way, has strength to hold off defenders and is good at ghosting in to the area to headers. He has been great for us and don't really want to lose him as he brings us something different. But I wouldn't begrudge him a move to a bigger club, but I think an European club would suit his laid-back style.
Yeah, I read that, too. I think he's happy enough where he is and plans to see out the rest of his contract, but if Fulham wants to profit from his success, selling him next summer would be a smart thing to do. I read somewhere that Dempsey was offered a position in Arsenal's youth academy about 12 years ago but decided to stay in Texas for family reasons, choosing instead to attend university for a couple of years, scoring (as I recall) 20 goals in 30 games before becoming the 4th player picked in the MLS draft that year. It's hard to say how well Dempsey would fit in Wenger's system, though Arteta seems like a more natural fit.
Hi DR, I've heard bits and pieces about the american drft system in their sports, but have to confess to a very sketchy understanding. Could you give us a short tutorial Pls. ?
tosh - One way to explain it is like this: when you and your friends show up at the park for a game of six-a-side, two captains are picked, right? At that point, the two captains take turns picking from the talent pool they have standing in front of them. If the first captain got to take his first six picks first, the second team would get stuck with a weak team without a chance of winning. The US draft is like that. You've got 100 viable soccer players coming out of university and the teams (starting with the weakest team in the league) start picking in order. Clint Dempsey was the #4 pick in the draft his year. All US sports work like that, which is why there's no "Big four" in any American sports league. The other thing that makes American sports more competitive is that some of the leagues (basketball and soccer included) have salary caps not unlike our fantasy leagues. In other words, the LA Lakers basketball franchise is not supposed to spend much more than the New Jersey Nets, which creates some parity in the league. Some would argue that American sports are more competitive (i.e. any team can win the league) than European leagues, that because it's virtually assured that ManU, Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea (my money is on ManC this year) will win the league, that the competition is less intriguing, but I don't think that's true. I like the EPL and don't mind having a big five, or even a big two like you have in Spain.
Thanks for the explanation DR. You often see a reference to the "draft pick" in US fiction (eg Harlan Coben) so its useful to understand how it works. I had sort of worked out the basic principle but not the details eg. that the weakest team goes first. Your reference to university got me thinking - I wonder if any UK footballers have been to Uni?!
Here are some Fulham related ones: Matt Lawrence, from the Micky Adams days, completed a degree in American Literature before becoming a professional. Ian Dowie has a masters in Aeronautical Engineering. There's a joke about that being why he was so good in the air, but I'm almost - almost - above making it. Udo Onwere, who played in our midfield in the early 80s is now a lawyer, apparently. As far as I know his studying came after his football career rather than before it. I only know about him because I read an article by Andy Cole where he referred to a project being run by 'one of his oldest friends in football' who was now a lawyer. They must have hit it off when Cole was on loan with us under Don MacKay. Broader than Fulham, I know that Steve Coppell and Steve Heighway are both graduates, and I'm sure there are many more that others can add to the list.
I believe our own Senderos is fluent in six languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Serbian. I also thought I remembered reading about him being the most academic when he was at Arsenal - now Googling to substantiate...
While US professional athletes often have a university education, many of those degrees are in what's called "communications" ... very easy degree to obtain, preparing them for broadcasting after their careers are over. Since both money and athletics are involved, the whole business of these amateur "student athletes" getting their degrees is rife with corruption, particularly in basketball where some of these inner-city kids show up for university driving brand new BMWs, but nobody questions it. Generally you can tell how smart someone when you hear them interviewed. Ever heard Danny Murphy give an interview? He's a bright boy. I fully expect him to have a broadcasting career after he's finished.
Thx DR - so in the draft, does any money change hands when signing up these guys (other than their salary, of course)?
Tosh ... no money goes back to the schools. It's straight into the hands of the player and his agent. It's a strange system the US has. It's probably something that's evolved over time, but there's big money in college sports there in the States. On a per-game basis, college basketball and football games generated nearly as much money as professional version. That's due in part to school loyalty, but there's also inter-state rivalries. Before moving to Europe, I lived in Oregon and we (the glorious Ducks) have a big rivalry with those inbred, knuckle-dragging, monosyllabic Washington State people to the north (Huskies). This school-centric nature of US sports is a blessing and a curse. It's very bad for our soccer players. The soccer season at US schools runs from March - June ... that's barely enough time to warm up! But it's a blessing for track sports. US High Schools will have a 4-month-long season of track each year, which explains why US track athletes do so well - that and the steriods.
Totally agree with DR's point that you can tell how bright a player (or anyone else for that matter) is when they are interviewed and agree specifically about our Danny. Outside of FFC, however, it often seems to be the case that the players from abroad are more articulate and eloquent in English than those for whom it is a first language. Not wishing to name names but SWP's interview on signing with QPR would be a case in point. Not surprised about Senderos who also comes over well when interviewed and Swiss people generally seem to be very good linguists. But lets not forget that a certain Mr Hodgson was another foreign language expert, much more unusual amongst English people unfortunately.
Roy is certainly an intelligent well-read man, whose tastes in literature run to the top end of the literary scale. As far as his wide-ranging ability with language goes, I think that's mostly due to having worked in several countries and applied himself to picking up the language in each one. Similarly with Senderos, I believe that Switzerland is a multi-lingual country, so for the Swiss being a polyglot comes with the territory.
The stories of dumb athletes are common. What's uncommon are stories about how smart a few of these men are. A famous basketball player named Bill Bradley, who went to Princeton University on an athletic scholarship and had an amazing college and professional sports career. But when he was drafted, skipped going to the pros for a couple years because he'd been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and attended Oxford for his post-graduate studies. He went on to be a US Senator and a contender for the US presidency. I personally spent a day training former basketball start Joe Barry Carroll, who had retired a multi-millionnaire after a successful NBA career. But bored with retirement, he went on to get a Masters degree in investment banking. When I met him (to teach him this exotic banking software), he was a high-end, personal banker, the kind of guy whose clients are billionnaires. Uber smart.
As DR suggests, there are many stories of thick footballers. When at Liverpool, Jason McAteer went out for pizza with some team-mates. When the waitress asked if he wanted his pizza cut into 4 or 8 slices he asked her to cut it into four because 'I couldn't possibly eat 8 slices.' When McAteer was John Barnes' assistant manager at Tranmere, the players apparently nicknamed them 'Dumb and Dumber'. According to Tony Cascarino, when Frank Sinclair was at Chelsea he swore blind that he preferred the taste of penguins in blue wrappers to the other colours, maintaining his position even when told that they were all exactly the same under the wrapper.
Whilst I love the Jason McAteer story it is, I'm afraid, not true. Well, the story is true, but not that it was said by the aforementioned Trigger. It was actually uttered by one of the great Baseball players, who I am sure DR will know - Yogi Berra (actually christened Lawrence) whom Yogi Bear was named after. He is famous for his air-headed comments - other recorded examples are: As a general comment on baseball: "90% of the game is half mental." On why he no longer went to Ruggeri's, a St. Louis restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." When giving directions to Joe Garagiola to his New Jersey home, which is accessible by two routes: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." On being the guest of honor at an awards banquet: "Thank you for making this day necessary." "It's déjà vu all over again". "You can observe a lot by watching." Simultaneously confirming and denying his ability to coin a malapropism "I really didn't say everything I said" and probably his most famous line "It ain't over till it's over." Think of him as a US version of our Murray Walker.
Some of his quotes are so much a part of the American lexicon, people have long forgotten that it was Yogi that said it first.
