re: Dempsey to Sounders, Per ESPN

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I don't really think a year in the mls will diminish his abilities come WC time.

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I agree. This move doesn't have any bearing on the WC IMO, unless being teammates with Clint elevates EJ's game. I feel like he (EJ) still has another level to which he can take his game.

Dempsey is at his ceiling.

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He's been saying nothing but champions league aspirations for the past year and a half and now he jumps back to MLS? He must be homesick, or maybe he's losing his passion for the game and wants to make things fun again

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Maybe he realizes "Champions League" is kind of an arbitrary goal. It's not his fault the Spurs didn't get there. Not his fault that he scored 20 goals on a team that would have made CL from a lower level league but didn't in the EPL.
The point being I think the whole Champion's League thing is and should be more about the level at which you are playing than it is about reaching and possibly losing out in the early round of a tournament. Outside of a couple of teams from each big league, high-level EPL is as high a level as one can play at, and Dempsey proved he could more than hold his own there.