{"id":8652,"date":"2012-01-21T15:27:46","date_gmt":"2012-01-21T20:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=8652"},"modified":"2012-01-21T15:37:07","modified_gmt":"2012-01-21T20:37:07","slug":"dempsey-bags-three-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=8652","title":{"rendered":"Dempsey Bags Three Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago Clint Dempsey made headlines with his first career hat trick<\/a><\/span>, hitting the back of the net three times in Fulham FC\u2019s 4-0 FA Cup Third Round win over Football League One (English second division) side Charlton Athletic.<\/p>\n

Now, just a day after being named 2011 U.S. Soccer Male Athlete of the Year, Dempsey is in the news again, with another three goal performance. This time the former New England Revolution midfielder\u2019s explosion of goals came in a thirty minute second half span in a 5-2 Premier League victory over Newcastle United at Fulham\u2019s home grounds, Craven Cottage, in London.<\/p>\n

“Luckily the ball kept going in,” Dempsey told the Associated Press<\/em>. \u201cWe never took our foot off the gas and we took our chances.”<\/p>\n

Fulham trailed 1-0 at halftime, but Danny Murphy equalized seven minutes into the second half on a penalty kick. Dempsey then took over, finishing off a rebound from a Bobby Zamora shot to put the home side in the lead in the 59th minute.<\/p>\n

Six minutes later, Dempsey added his second and made it 3-1 as Zamora played Dempsey behind the defense and the U.S. International calmly finished past Newcastle \u2018keeper Tim Krul. Following a Zamora penalty for Fulham in the 68th minute and an 85th minute consolation goal by Newcastle\u2019s Hatem Ben Arfa to make it 4-2, Dempsey completed his hat trick<\/p>\n

One minute from the end of regulation time Zamora set up Dempsey again, this time with a chipped pass near midfield. Dempsey outpaced the Newcastle defense nearly the entire half of the field and again slotted it past Krul to make it 5-2 and complete his second career hat trick, becoming the first American to tally three goals in an English Premier League match.<\/p>\n

Dempsey now has nine goals in the Premier League this season as well as four assist. He has 15 goals through all competitions (FA Cup, Europa League and Premier League) with Fulham this season.<\/p>\n

Dempsey scored 25 goals and added 14 assists in 71 MLS regular season games for the Revolution, but never recorded a hat trick with the team. The Texas native also has 24 goals in 82 games for the U.S. National Team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Revs star Clint Dempsey nets his second hat trick for Fulham in two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[26,3,22],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/dempseyfeature5.jpg?fit=490%2C225&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8652"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8655,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8652\/revisions\/8655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}