Normally it would take a World Cup for Americans to make as much news on the international soccer scene as they have these last few days.

In the English Premier League, the Texan Clint Dempsey, playing for Fulham, went up for a header and broke Chelsea defender John Terry’s cheekbone with an elbow strike. Terry happens to be the English national team captain.

Seattle native Marcus Hahnemann, goalkeeper for Reading, was on the wrong end of a 7–4 loss to Portsmouth that set the record for the highest scoring game in English Premier League history. But it gets better.

Freddy Adu made his Portuguese league debut for Benfica three days after scoring his first goal for the club in a cup game. Giuseppe Rossi, a 20-year-old New Jersey native, scored his fourth goal of the Spanish La Liga season for Villarreal, which puts him one goal behind the league-leading scorer, Barcelona’s Lionel Messi. American goalkeepers Tim Howard (Everton) and Brad Friedel (Blackburn) helped keep their teams in the top third of the EPL standings.

In Mexico, 20-year-old Edgar Castillo, who was born and raised in New Mexico, made his 10th straight start for Santos Laguna as it extended its season-long unbeaten streak to 10 games.

On Tuesday, Indiana product DaMarcus Beasley scored and set up another goal for Glasgow Rangers in its 3–0 UEFA Champions League win over six-time French champion Lyon.

Americans also started games in the top divisions of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark.

Before Major League Soccer’s launch in 1996, a few players — such as Paul Caligiuri, Tab Ramos, and John Harkes — moved abroad because they had no domestic option. Claudio Reyna, who joined the New York Red Bulls this season, started his pro career in Europe in 1994 and spent the next 12 years playing top-tier ball in Germany, Scotland, and England.

Now Americans are drawn to Europe by the bigger paychecks and the challenge of competing in more glamorous leagues.

Dempsey was earning $86,000 a year in his third season with MLS’s New England Revolution when he left for the EPL, where annual salaries average $2.1 million. New England was drawing fewer than 12,000 fans a game during Dempsey’s last season with the club, in 2006. Fulham sells out its 22,602-seat Craven Cottage stadium for each home game and often plays its road games in front of crowds in the 40,000 range. MLS league-wide average attendance is 16,000.

Dempsey is also playing against some of the world’s top players and his impact hasn’t been limited to breaking their cheekbones. In fact, the $4 million transfer fee Fulham paid for Dempsey last January has already paid off. The Cottagers were in the midst of an 11-game winless streak last season when Dempsey came off the bench and scored the game winner against Liverpool in the season’s penultimate game. The victory saved Fulham from relegation to the second tier, where clubs earn about $60 million less in annual revenue than in the Premiership.

Dempsey was used as a sub in the first three games of this season before earning a starting role. He scored goals in each of the next three games and was named Fulham’s Player of the Month.

In the scoreless tie with Chelsea, Dempsey was one of the Cottagers’ three American starters. At goalkeeper was Kasey Keller, the 37-year-old Washington state product who has been playing in Europe since 1991. Central defender Carlos Bocanegra wore the captain’s band, which another American, Brian McBride, had donned until sidelined by injury. The increasing number of Americans excelling in various foreign leagues bodes well for the U.S. national team, which usually fields only three or four MLS players in important games.

Foreign-based players bring a familiarity with various styles of play to the national team and undoubtedly benefit from the dayto-day pressure that is not yet matched in MLS, where teams don’t get relegated and top American players are virtually guaranteed starting spots.

“Here, the day after a club signs you is the day they start looking for a replacement, because they’re always trying to improve,” said Californian Steve Cherundolo, who has been playing for Germany’s Hannover 96 since 1999. “Being celebrated to being fired goes real fast. There’s pressure every day to prove you’re worthy of being in the 11.”

A decade ago, only three Americans plied their trade in EPL. Now there are 11, six of whom first played in MLS, which is becoming a launching pad for moves to Europe. Most recently, besides Adu’s move to Benfica, New Jersey product Danny Szetela left the Columbus Crew for Spain’s Racing Santander.

There’s also a trend of players moving abroad as teenagers, such as Rossi, the Teaneck native who left his Clifton, N.J., home at age 13 to join Italian club Parma’s youth program. He then played for Manchester United and Newcastle in the EPL and Parma in Italy’s Serie A, before landing at Villarreal in Spain.

But Rossi, who was born to Italian immigrants, has dual citizenship and has turned down invitations to play for America while appearing for Italian youth national teams.

Castillo, who went to Mexico at age 18, was completely ignored by the U.S. national team program. The snub led to his appearance for the Mexican national team in August.

Castillo is one of five Americans who’s seen Mexican First Division action this season. With Mexico’s pro clubs now aggressively scouting young Mexican-American talent in this country, that number is likely to increase in the coming years. American coaches should start paying attention.

Mr. Woitalla is the executive editor of Soccer America Magazine . He can be reached at mike@socceramerica.com.