Clint Dempsey, the all-time leading goal scorer in USMNT history was named Comeback Player of the Year by Major League Soccer on Wednesday, just edging out Columbus’ Federico Higuain. Dempsey missed much of the second half of the 2016 season with an irregular heartbeat but returned in 2017 to score 12 goals.
Dempsey’s career was in jeopardy last year when an irregular heartbeat was discovered in August. He missed the final 10 regular-season games and was out for the entire postseason, watching on the sideline as his Seattle Sounders teammates won their first MLS Cup.
The native Texan was cleared to return for the 2017 season and the 34-year-old made a career-high 29 appearances, adding five assists to his dozen goals. The Clint Dempsey comeback was completed when he scored the only two goals in the 2-0 aggregate win over Vancouver in the Western Conference semifinals, despite missing the first leg for a red card suspension. He’ll face off against the Houston Dynamo in the Western Conference finals next week.
Dempsey had a device surgically installed into his chest to monitor his heart and it took him a while to feel natural and stop thinking about his heart whether he was training, in a match or lying in bed.
"I probably really didn't start feeling really good until I'd say May, June; that's when I started feeling like my numbers were where they used to be," Dempsey told the Associated Press. "Early in the season we were looking at the numbers in March and April and they really weren't where I used to be. I could feel the difference as well, but you could also see it in the numbers."
Clint Dempsey. Photo: @seattlesoccer | Twitter
The Comeback Player of the Year honor was Dempsey’s second MLS award of his career, having won Rookie of the Year in 2004. He spent eight years in the English Premier League, most of them with Fulham. Dempsey has 57 career goals in 141 caps with the U.S., tied with Landon Donovan for most goals for the Red, White & Blue.
Dempsey received 18.79 percent of the vote to win Comeback Player of the Year. Higuain, brother of Juventus striker Gonzalo, had nine goals and 14 assists for the Austin Columbus Crew and finished with 18.09 percent of the vote. Houston’s Erick “Cubo” Torres was third with 14.64 percent followed by Vancouver’s Yordy Reyna, Toronto’s Drew Moor and New York City’s Ben Sweat.
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