And wake me up in 4 years when Donovan states he's only 50/50 about playing in the 2018 World Cup. (That guy really needs to prove himself in Europe.)
You said it was a non-story. That's not true. Then you engaged in some hilarious psychoanalysis. My sarcasm detector works fine. As does my stupidity detector.
I bet a lot of players over 30 years old have doubts. Most of them don't express them to the media like Donovan just did. Older players are more likely to have families they want to be around. Older players are more likely to have nagging injuries. Older players are more likely to want to focus on their club careers (because they have fewer bigt money-making years left). And on and on............. All of this discussion about Donovan at the 2014 World Cup ignores an important point..............: Of course we have to qualify for the World Cup first, and without Donovan that task becomes even more of a challenge. And before people say "Pish, we always qualify for the World Cup. We'll get there. We can do it without Donovan".................................all I have to say about that is we were saying the same thing before the 2012 Olympics and the 2011 U20 World Cup.
We don't have enough depth to qualify with second and third stringers. We need our best playing their best. If not we lose like the tournaments you mentioned. We have to be fortunate that our players are released and that they are playing well. Injuries, form, lack of depth all negatively influence the on field talent enough to make it harder for us to play well to win. We need a dedicated Donovan for a yr and a half just like we need Chandler, Central Defenders to emerge....etc. Injuries will affect those players availability and heavily influence whether we are good enough to qualify.
My definition of 'non-story' is that the odds of him not being on WC 2014 roster are very low in my opinion. That is, for this to be a story it would actually have to have some reasonable likelihood of affecting the actual games the actual team plays. By that definition, is referring to this is a non-story not true? If you are using the definition that this is a story that produces fodder for discussion and soap-opera style entertainment, I suppose it is a story.
I don't think he was referring to Donovan being eligible or directly related to those tournament fails just the general concept of we should always qualify no matter what personnel we put on the field. We need Donovan to qualify for WC14.
The qualification standards and processes for the 2012 Olympics and the 2011 U20 World Cup do not align with the qualification standards and processes for the 2014 WC. Apples and oranges. (And yes, the US could miss out on the 2014 WC, with or without LD playing, or playing often for the US, in 2013.)
All I was implying was that if you look at the threads before the qualifying campaigns for the 2011 U20 World Cup and 2012 Olympics you will see massive overconfidence. Oh..............we're not going to have Altidore or Gatt for Olympic qualifying? No problem. We're fine. Meanwhile we were unable to beat Canada and El Salvador at home. Are our chances of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup better or worse without Landon Donovan. They're worse. Obviously. And with the way our team was playing against Guatemala, A&B, and Jamaica....................I shudder to think what the Hex has the potential of being. Let's not be overconfident here. We need our best guys out there.
While Zusi is good for waht he is.... he's no Donovan. No one really is right now. We need him badly for success.....
Agreed. Although, I tend to think there isn't much correlation between the "fan overconfidence" (as displayed by BS posters) and the actual/possible "overconfidence" of the senior team. Among the youth teams (U20 and U23) there very well could be more of a "BS-type" of overconfidence among the players (having not gone through those types of qualifying struggles themselves as players). "Overconfidence" is what being a fan is all (or primarily) about. (The challenge for players can be to not think too much, or at all, like a fan of the would think.) Agreed. And ideally, we need those "best guys" to be healthy and motivated. (And they should/will be for the Hex. And it doesn't change the fact that the Hex format is more accommodating to slip-ups within a few games, relative to the qualifying process used for those youth competitions.) And those 2011 U20 World Cup and 2012 Olympics non-qualifications (among other things to include the difficulty of the semifinal Concacaf WCQ round in 2012) should also be beneficial learning tools for the program/staff/team. (Very likely at some point, the US is going to fail to qualify for a WC. Not everyone will be ready for that, no matter when it happens, and no matter if the US has all of their "best guys" playing and playing their best.)
I find it interesting that Donovan has reiterated this point multiple times over the last six months, he's clearly serious about it.
And/or he has been injured somewhat and not playing much for the NT in that same period, and has had not much else to think/talk about.
Donovan is the best American player ever, without a doubt, and truly a special talent. He was named the best U17 in the world at the U17 World Cup. A player like him comes along once a generation. When he's at his best, he can carry the team on his back. His retirement would be a huge loss for us. A huge loss.
He will be nowhere near the national team in 2018. I fully expected him to be retired from the game altogether by then, and I have been saying that since 2011.
Time will certainly tell. You don't think leading the US to the finals of the 2016 Copa America Centennial won't help extend his career to stay somewhere near the national team throughout the next cycle?
Or what if we win the GC in 15, and have the Conf Cup in 17? What if we make the Olympics in 16 and he's invited as an overage player, which he wanted this past summer? A lot can happen. If LD is still talking retirement when at Everton, then I might worry. Right now he just wants to retire from MLS for the time being. Didn't seem to me that skipping an MRI to fly to Mia to join the NT was something a guy who didn't want to ply anymore would do. Nor does jumping back into the EPL sound like something someone with retirement from the game on their mind would want to do. Normally it's the other way, you retire to MLS.
Agreed. LD is not normal. He, (by being who he is in the history of US Soccer and by playing the prime years of his career in the domestic league) realistically or just arguably (and by doing things like standing up to the league's first DP and demanding he show some more commitment to the team/league), may have done more for MLS than any other player has done or will ever be able to do.
For an overwhelming majority of the time the last 10 years, LD has been our best player. However, outside of one game he has not been that player this year. The LD that has shown up this year is not the team's best player. I would slot him firmly behind Demps, Bradley, F. Johnson and maybe even Cherundolo. I believe we have seen the best of LD. I think he'll have great games still with the USMNT, but I expect those to be the exception rather than the norm.
I was fortunate to have been in Jacksonville, Florida on May 26th, the night that the USA played Scotland in a friendly. Our seats were on the right side and it was a privilege to watch him in action. He thoroughly and completely dominated, Phil Bardsley, also the right back for Sunderland in the BPL, to the point, I wondered if Bardsley had partied too much the night before. Not only did he achieve his own hat trick (would hate to think it was his last), he also delivered the pass to Jermaine Jones on Bradley's assist and the assist on Jones' goal, the fifth of the match. I thought it was the best match I had seen an American play, recently, up there with Bradley's effort in Genoa. Players who can pull a performance out like this are quite rare indeed, particularly in an American shirt. Here are the field level highlights: We traveled up to Landover the next 4 days to see the USA play Brazil. We had seats from the same side and unfortunately Donovan was physically outmatched by the very impressive and nasty Marcelo.
I gotta admit that game against Brazil I don't think I have ever seen anyone dominate Donovan like Marcelo did. But hey, everyone has a bad night and Donovan is still capable of carrying this team on other nights against strong competition. I'm a fan, but I do think a point should come sooner rather than later when Donovan is either in or out. I understand his absences thus far have been due to injury, but if he is going to retire Klinsmann really should be told soon so that he doesn't spend the next two years basing a plan around one of our most dominant players who then skips out before we get to Brazil. That would be pretty unfair to the squad. If he were to suffer an injury and get knocked out of the cup, fine...that happens and in many cases can be devastating to a team, but it isn't something you can do much about. But he really should make a call as to his desire to play or not if healthy so that the team can have a better idea what to expect.