The most important American soccer player of all time failed to make it during two separate stints in the Bundesliga and managed a mere 17 appearances in the Premier League.
Much to the annoyance of detractors who nicknamed him "Landycakes", he spent almost his entire career in Major League Soccer and played just two matches in the Uefa Champions League. Yet, he still scored five goals in 12 games at three different World Cup tournaments, and, along the way, changed the sport in this country forever.
On Sunday, Landon Donovan’s Los Angeles Galaxy entertain Real Salt Lake in the second leg of the Western Conference semi-finals of the MLS play-offs. After a scoreless opener, the Galaxy need to win or this will be Donovan’s last competitive game. At just 32, the retirement of the face of the sport has prompted soul-searching and debate among the cognoscenti. Some regard him as the best American of this or any generation, despite Clint Dempsey’s superior overseas record. Others feel he could perhaps have achieved more than he did. There is merit to both sides.
Aside from his World Cup heroics, most people in Ireland probably know Donovan as the guy with the receding hairline who pops up as a supporting actor in viral videos of Robbie Keane's MLS goals, the pair having forged an extraordinarily fecund partnership. Some may also recall him from a couple of brief, impressive loan cameos with Everton under David Moyes.
Greater recognition
A striker who played 157 internationals, and finished with 57 goals and 58 assists, deserves greater recognition.
Why? Well, because the statistics only hint at the true nature of his contribution during the era of the game’s most significant growth in these parts, a time when the upward trajectory of his own career often ran parallel with that of soccer itself. In 1999, Donovan won the Golden Ball for best player at the Under-17 World Cup where the United States finished fourth. A ground-breaking achievement for an American, he was already on the books of Bayer Leverkausen and apparently destined for greatness.
Today, several promising American teens are cutting their teeth at clubs all around Europe. Back then, however, Donovan was blazing a trail. A very lonely trail. He lost his spark, struggled to adapt to life in a city 6000 miles from his family in California, and, in 2001, the Germans sent him home on loan to the San Jose Earthquakes. He returned to a fledgling MLS that was struggling and about to shrink to just 10 clubs. At 19, he lit the place up and his presence ever since is one of the reasons why next season the competition will expand to 20 teams.
It wasn't just the way he subsequently led the Earthquakes to two titles in three seasons. In between, he went to the 2002 World Cup, starred on an American side that reached the quarter-finals, and gained a fame that transcended the sport. His was the face chosen to adorn the cover of the Fifa video games in the US market, the true modern benchmark of iconic status. If the way he set international goalscoring records is reminiscent of Robbie Keane, Donovan's reluctance to suffer fools more resembles Roy Keane.
When too many in Los Angeles were genuflecting before David Beckham early on in his time there, Donovan publicly called out the disinterested Englishman for his lack of commitment to the club and to his team-mates. Nobody else would have done it or could have done it. That Beckham's attitude improved significantly thereafter as the pair went on to win two MLS titles together sums up how seriously the criticism was taken.
Burn out
Donovan was forthright on more important issues too. At the end of 2012, he took a sabbatical from soccer. Citing burn out, depression and a desire to recapture his zest for life, he chose to spend several months travelling in South-East Asia rather than wintering on loan to a Premier League club.
“I think probably a lot of people can relate to that at some point in their life or their career,” said Donovan. “I hope people look at that and say, ‘Gosh, I guess it’s okay to feel human feelings once in a while. It’s what makes us human’. I think we have a very big issue with mental health in our country, and I think it’s very much under-publicised. I think people aren’t aware of it themselves. They don’t have compassion towards it.”
His decision and candour were applauded by many, but absenting himself during World Cup qualifying didn't sit well with US coach Jurgen Klinsmann. The pair had worked together during a short-lived Donovan loan spell at Bayern Munich when both of them were struggling. The fractious relationship culminated in the German opting to leave the talisman out of the squad for Brazil last summer, depriving him of a fourth World Cup.
Instead of a Hollywood ending then, the last act of his international career was a token run-out in a farewell friendly against Ecuador in Connecticut last month. While that occasion was all very ersatz and forced, there is a chance should the Galaxy advance that the MLS title game will take place at their own StubHub Center in Los Angeles on December 7th. A much more fitting time and place for him to bring the curtain down.
