News: Donovan says he has European offers, and is interested in saying yes

Fortunately now Jozy is playing at the highest level, with that magnificent Sunderland team. Man, they play beautiful footie in England, no?

 

When I watch Sunderland pass the ball around, tears are brought to my eyes by the sheer magnificence and beauty of it.

 

Tears are definitely brought to my eyes as well.

 

is it magnificently beautiful or beautifully magnificent? my mere mortal brain cannot comprehend...

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20130827/landon-donovan-la-galaxy/

 

boo. that's no fun

 

Not unexpected.

 

Chump

 

Obviously it's his life and career, and I appreciate that in a number of respects he's not a typical elite-level athlete in terms of his ambitions, but this time I am a wee bit, selfishly, disappointed. (And the Galaxy have really locked themselves in here with two 30+ attackers and a central defender as their DPs. But a discussion for a different thread, and this one is pretty much over.)

Welcome back, Landon! It hardly seems like you've been gone...

 

Are you asking who was the player that kept him out of the lineup at Leverkusen?

At the time, Leverkusen were playing a diamond 4-4-2. Donovan was for most of his time there back-up to Robson Ponte, who played as the attacking tip of that midfield diamond. Ponte wasn't playing badly, and in retrospect center-midfield probably wasn't the ideal position for Donovan, but there were I believe a decent number of Leverkusen fans at the time who thought Donovan should have been given a lot more minutes based on his play in the limited minutes he did get.

Anyway, en route to their last Champions League victory, Liverpool dismantled Leverkusen in the first knockout round of the tournament. After Leverkusen were defeated 3-1 in the opening leg, Donovan was finally in the second leg given the keys to a Leverkusen side missing a number of players to injury and suspensions (from the first leg) and trying to dig themselves out of a seemingly insurmountable hole. He had looked lively in a substitute appearances in that first leg. Unfortunately Donovan had seen very little time in the role he was expected to play leading up to the match, which was effectively as a midfield general, and he wasn't even given a start in the two league matches between those fixtures. So Donovan and the entire makeshift Leverkusen lineup (but yes Donovan especially) struggled just as badly in the second leg as the team had in the first, and Liverpool cruised to victory. Leverkusen's manager scapegoated Donovan and buried him on the bench after this, and soon after Donovan sought a return to MLS. Those were dark days around here.

Ponte was permanently benched (later sold) almost immediately after Donovan left. But, Leverkusen also switched formations to a more typical 4-4-2, so if Donovan had stuck around he either would have been competing with Berbatov or Voronin for a spot up top (which would have been very difficult at the time) or he would have had to beat out Paul Freier or Jacek Krzynowek at one of the wide midfield positions, and Donovan wasn't really thought of as a wide midfielder back then. Their manager was sacked at the very start of the next season as well.

 

In fairness, Donovan actually played Champions League football while Dempsey did not. How he played is another story.

Edit: I see this has been covered.

 

Robson Ponte. Although Donovan was clearly being groomed for the following year. Ponte was off to Japan.

Edit: this as well.

One thing that should be pointed out that while the coach may not have valued Donovan after his Champion's League debacle, the club clearly did. Rumors were that Donovan did not want to return to Germany but that he relented to constant pressure from Leverkusen. And it was him, not Leverkusen, that angled for a return to MLS.

 

Everybody always references the second leg with Liverpool, and there is no doubt that Donovan's confidence faded with every touch in that match. It was gut-wrenching to watch, but that doesn't tell the whole story.

As was mentioned above, he played in the first leg as well and was easily one of the better players for either team that day. So much so, that it was assumed by many fans that he would probably be starting the next league match. When he didn't, there was some criticism for the coach. As injuries and suspensions mounted, it became apparent that Leverkusen was going to have to field a make-shift side for the 2nd leg. Yet despite having a couple of relatively easy games preceding the CL game, the manager chose not to play Donovan.

It was never going to be anything but a disaster. Donovan played poorly, and was singled out, but only because the whole team was horrible and they kept trying in vain to force play through him. Liverpool had learned from the first match that they needed to keep LD in check and they did. They pressured him like crazy and he wilted.

I had a German friend at the time who was a big BL supporter. He said that a lot of fans believed that upper management was pressuring the coach to start Donovan and that he was resentful. It is hard to say that the coach expected Donovan to fail, but it was unlikely that BL was ever going to pull out an aggregate victory even with a full side, and he had to know that they were doomed from the first whistle.

 

Yup, called it too. No need to fix what is not broken.

An old American in Europe is likely to ride pine, or play in the Chivas USA of a big league. or play in some little league making little money. Guy's too much of a legend to put up with that.

 

as predicted by many Donovan re-signs with LAG.

Legend for national team but no ambition at club level.

 

Agreed.

 

Far better to have played and lost then never to have played at all?

 

His goal has always been World Cups.

 

As long as Landon continues at this level in the MLS I can be satisfied. It might be interesting to see competition between him and Dempsey for best American in the MLS. I know he's settling in/adjusting to turf, but I thought Dempsey played poorly last Sunday night - too many blind turns with the ball into defenders, a bad habit from his earlier years at Fulham (and much of last year with Spurs). I get he was "tryna make stuff happen."

 

Well, Landon played and lost; Dempsey has never played at all.

I have a feeling, though, based on other posts by you, you seem to believe it's the other way around.

 

I made my peace with Donovan and MLS when he turned 30. It never made sense to transfer abroad after that, taking it easy in MLS made much more sense at that point.

PS: Don't do any stupid loan moves either.

 

I think we all saw this coming... No surprise here.