Will Donovan get the start now that Toni has been ruled out of the match? Or will Prinze Podolski come back from his injury ready to score on his dream team and take the spotlight away from Landon? Sopcast stream- sop://broker.sopcast.com:3912/6008 GOL TV Broadcast is at 10:30 PM CST
oof....kind of a punch in the gut for ol' LD. Oh well, I'm sure he feels he still has an opportunity to stick there. Part of me thinks the germans are trying to make him crash out like he did before just to see if he's matured. We're not talking about Arminia Bielefeld (sp) here.
LOL. wow, this is almost over now and just think, 80%+ of folks in the poll thought he would score within the first 3 games. How quickly things change. Appoo is going to ream me for this! For any glint of daylight to be left on a transfer, Landon need to get some early minutes and blow the doors off this performance. The lack of a signature game by Landon in Berlin hurt his transfer prospects enormously. That was his 'window of opportunity' and he didn't take it.. You could argue such pressure is not fair, but it is what it is. In retrospect, this was always a very difficult battle for Landon to secure a move to Bayern- likely tougher than he even realized. Kindof shocking Landon wouldn't even get the start. Either Klinsmann is worried about his job now/got pressured into the move, or Landon is not looking as good in training as Poldi. Both scenarios also argue poorly for a transfer actually happening. The 3rd scenario is that Bayern and Galaxy are so far apart on a transfer price, Bayern sees no chance of the move happening. Even still, if Landon was showing better- Bayern would start him now regardless if he was going back on the 9th, because they only care about winning today's game. The fact that Bayern would start a horse drawn and quartered Poldi- whose gone in June, and has spoken much about his lack of desire to be at BM- over I want to be at Bayern' Landon speaks volumes to the overall confidence of what Landon can bring performance-wise at this point. Better start scoring, Landon!
I posted this in the other thread but excuse me for repeating:when the general manager says he is not interested in you, you need a new team. Period. Landon has done pretty well at BM, but he needs a new team. He will come back to the USA and get many offers over the summer from teams in Europe who actually want him. I suspect some of the teams will be as rich or richer, and perhaps as good as Bayern.
exactly, and suppose he does sign, and Klinsi gets fired? Landy will be right where Adu is in Europe-nowhere.
Not only is the GM not interested, but he's come out and said they owe it to the Germany National Team to play Podolski during his remaining time. This has been a good pressure situation and training for Donovan, though, and he'll come out a better player.
no biggie- It was a loan, Landon got some good time, and if he wants, there will be many opportunities. It turned out to be what is was advertised: a loan.
I think that's a narrow view. With MLS's price, perhaps Donovan didn't really have much of a shot at a transfer this winter. If not for Klinsman, Donovan would have been at camp cupcake. As soon as Bayern signed Olic, Donovan's probability of a long-term deal was pretty much finished. And personally, it's hard to argue w/ Bayern for signing Olic on a free over paying a big fee for Landon. Now Klinsman is in a box with his boss. Neither Podolski or Donovan are likely to have a future with the club past this season. So, it's down to whether Klinsman is willing to fall on his sword to try and extend Donovan's loan while Podolski rots on the bench. Donovan can't extend the loan unless both he succeeds on the field and Podolski fails. So, here is Podolski's opportunity to fail. When this is done, it's likely that a part of Donovan will feel like he was used to light a fire under Podolski. But he'll also have had a great experience.
It is kind of strange that Podolski is playing against his former and soon-to-be team... will we see his trademark blank face goal expression (ie v Poland)?