Ever since he was a talented teenager, Landon Donovan, of the Los Angeles Galaxy and the U. S. National team, has been one of the most hyped of American soccer players. Generally recognized as the best home-grown player the country has ever had, Donovan was nevertheless a disappointment in the 2006 World Cup, having a couple of listless performances and scoring no goals. What went wrong? How good is he? Will he ever be world-class?
In one sense he is the beneficiary of a progressive development program for young talent, but after graduating he has in another way become the victim of the way things are for U.S. professional players.
Emerging from a soccer academy as a teenager, he made his first appearance for the national team in 2000, scoring one of the two goals and being named “Man of the Match” in a defeat of Mexico. Since then he has been a fixture in the team, and now has more than 80 appearances. But if you look carefully at his history, a few key things emerge that should give us pause to think about how we prepare American players, American coaches and our national team.
Donovan quickly became a star in MLS in his rookie season. He had played as a non-starting teenager with Bayer 04 Leverkusen of the Bundesliga in Germany, but returned on loan to the San Jose Earthquakes where he won MLS titles in 2001 and 2003, played in all-star games, scored lots of goals, and was named Soccer Athlete of the Year in 2003. After that success, Bayer 04 wanted him back in 2004-5.
He played, but did not do too well. He appeared in only nine games, did not score, got frustrated at his lack of playing time. When you believe you are a big fish, even in a small pond like MLS, it is hard to accept the fact that you are not going to swim every week.
The culmination came on March 9, 2005, in a Champions League match against Liverpool, a good test for any player, especially a midfielder aligned against world-class opposition like Steve Gerrard.
The match report from ESPNStar says it all:
“Steven Gerrard was the outstanding player on the pitch, running Leverkusen ragged. Gerrard started the second half in increasingly dominant form. Bayer failed to get to grips with his roving role and he kept popping up in critical positions to break up play and feed Baros, Riise and Luis Garcia. The England midfielder was everywhere, prompting, surging forward and finding space to drag the Germans out of position with clever, telling passes. Leverkusen sent on Clemens Fritz for ineffective USA international, Landon Donovan, eight minutes after the restart.”
Donovan did not play in the next two matches for the German club, and by the end of the month he had had enough. He let Leverkusen know of his distress, they released him from his contract and out came the announcement that he had signed for Los Angeles of MLS. He was back home, and pretty soon, a star again.