Tag Archives: Landon Donovan

Relax Everybody, I Will Convince Landon Donovan to Keep Playing Soccer

13 Feb

There is a disturbance in the American Soccer Fan Industrial Complex.

Landon Donovan, the greatest player in the history of the US Men’s National Soccer Team, has decided to take a little time off from the game. He’s been a pro since he was a teenager. He’s burned out. He got divorced a couple years back, from Bianca Kajlich, an actress from the television machine.

Before all that, though, he was, for over a decade, the best hope of the US program. Here are some of my favorite all time Donovan Moments:

1. This is from a friendly against Mexico from 2007. Totally meaningless game, but a typical Donovan goal, created almost entirely by his explosive speed:

 

2. This is from the US vs Algeria World Cup 2010 first round match–Donovan scores with about 30 seconds to play. Without this goal, the US is out of the tournament in the first round. I was at this game, along with my wife and my brother. It was the greatest sports moment of my life, unlikely to be surpassed:

 

This was my reaction:

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This is a cool video of the crowd reactions to that goal from all over the US of A:

 

So, Donovan has decided to take a hiatus from the game. He hasn’t provided a timetable, though his club coach with the LA Galaxy, former US Men’s coach Bruce Arena, has stated that he expects Donovan will be back at some point during the MLS season.

That’s all well and good–the Galaxy need him. But there are far more pressing matters at hand–namely, the US’s current involvement in the final round of World Cup Qualifying for the 2014 tournament in Brazil.

This is where things get tricky without Donovan. The US is in a rebuilding phase, and frankly has been since the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when some of it’s most reliable stars–Claudio Reyna, Brian McBride, Eddie Pope–played in their last World Cup. Donovan has been the one true constant for the squad since then, along with Tim Howard in goal.  Clint Dempsey scores pretty regularly, but he doesn’t provide the dynamism, speed-threat or rate of goals and assists that Donovan does.

There’s a school of thought that says Donovan will rejoin the US sooner rather than later–that his return to the Galaxy will coincide with his return to the US team. Most US fans were ready to envision a team without Donovan–to let him sit on a beach somewhere and contemplate the waves and the what ifs.

That is, until what happened last week in Tegucigalpa.

See, last week, the US went down to the capital city of Honduras–the most dangerous city on the planet, according to the US State Department, if you’re keeping score–and lost 2-1 to a scrappy, young, very talented Honduras side, in the first game of a 10 game final round of qualifying. This doesn’t doom the US by any means–they’ve got nine more matches to secure the points needed to advance. But it was an ugly start to the round, with the US looking lethargic and disjointed. Donovan’s speed, creativity and composure were sorely missed. Here’s a great Kick TV piece on the match:

 

There are many takeaways from that video:

–It’s very, very difficult to win on the road in Central America

–Honduran politicians know much, much more about their national soccer team than US politicians

–The US traveling support is still a bunch of weirdos, God love ’em

But the biggest truth is this: The US team isn’t ready to succeed when it counts without Landon Donovan on the field.

We can only hope he’ll return, a conquering hero for the most crucial hour…

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Major League Shocker!

19 Nov

Okay so technically nothing too shocking happened in the Major League Soccer conference championship games yesterday. I’ve just always wanted to use that headline.

Following yesterday’s results, the Houston Dynamo and LA Galaxy will meet in MLS Cup 2012, on December 1, at 4:30 ET on ESPN.

Seattle 2, LA 1: LA advances, 4-2 on aggregate

LA thumped Seattle 3-0 in the first leg of the Western Conference finals, then survived a valiant comeback effort by their Emerald City foes at sopping, frigid, sold out Century Link Field yesterday. Seattle could and probably should have at least sent this one to extra time, but they were robbed of an early Eddie Johnson strike via a blown offsides call, and then suffered a harsh penalty call when Adam Johanssen was whistled for a handball in the box after inadvertently blocking a Robbie Keane cross from the endline with his dangling left hand:

Was it or wasn’t it?

I’ve seen this penalty given and not given an equal number of times–but I feel like as  ref, regardless of the rulebook, you have to err on the side of the defender, the home team, and the game’s high stakes here. It’s one of those grey area moments where refereeing needs as much art as science. Johanssen makes no attempt to handle the ball, Keane’s cross is likely headed nowhere, Seattle are on the verge of an historic comeback in front of the league’s best fan base–but alas, the penalty’s given, Keane slots it home, LA go up 4-2 on aggregate and hold on to advance:

Watch the highlights here.

Houston 1, DC 1: Houston advances, 4-2 on aggregate

Houston laid a controversial 3-1 beatdown on DC in the first leg, then silenced the crowd at decrepit, colossal RFK yesterday by grinding out a 1-1 tie. This one was honestly no contest–with better finishing, Houston could have walked away 5 or 6-1 winners on aggregate. DC were unlucky to lose the two keys to their offense–perennial MLS post-season legend Dwayne DeRosario and perennial Jurgen Klinsmann snub Chris Pontius–to injury. DeRo appeared for a 30 minute cameo, but it wasn’t enough as Houston rode an early, against-the-run-of-play Boniek Garcia strike and beast-mode defending by Bobby Boswell (who’s a dirty player in my opinion, but undeniably a hunter-killer for Houston) to sad-face the RFK crowd:

Watch the highlights here.

Final thoughts on these two:

1. “Home Field Advantage” Deserves the Ironic Quotation Marks I Just Put Around It

The league has maintained that allowing the lower-seeded team to host the first leg provides a home field advantage to the higher seed, who can, prospectively, clean up any deficit in the second leg at home. In all instances, this proved untrue in 2012:

I don’t think there’s a better way to reward the higher seed, unless maybe the league let them CHOOSE whether they wanted to host the first or second leg. But that seems far too democratic a move for a professional sports league, even one as warm and fuzzy as MLS*.

2. The Workin’ Man is a Sucker

Or, as it applies to MLS, the regular season is for suckers. LA and Houston barely squeaked into the playoffs on 54 and 53 points, respectively, won their play-in games, then toppled the two teams with the most points in the league: San Jose (66) and Kansas City (63). Had they not fallen at the first hurdle, either of those teams would have hosted MLS Cup based on their point totals.

Instead, LA will host MLS Cup at the Home Depot Center, while KC plays golf and San Jose, presumably, hangs out at Chris Wondolowski’s house and watches “Goonies” again.

It’s a cruel old game.

But seriously–how ’bout them Goonies?

 

MLS Cup prediction: 2-1 LA (if Donovan’s healthy) on goals from Donovan and Keane. If Donovan can’t go, Houston wins 1-0 after Mac Kandji listens to Posh Spice’s solo album in the center circle while balancing the ball on his forehead, dribbles the LA roster twice, stops to ask Dom Kinnear for directions to the goal, then backheel nutmegs Josh Saunders for the tally.

*The MLS Don’t Cross The Line campaign is warm, fuzzy, and very cool. Can you imagine another pro sports league emphasizing its total intolerance for discriminatory language right now, via a high profile campaign like this AND hefty fines and suspensions within the league? As this recent Grantland piece points out, this is all about MLS’s demo, which is very young and very “New America”. I think that’s awesome for the league, for the sport and for AMERICA:

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