Many of the greatest careers end with a sudden thud.
Michael Jordan had his two years with the Wizards. Joe Montana was a Kansas City Chief, and Willie Mays spent two sad years with the Mets. In sports, often there is no chance to end at the top of one’s powers. Instead, careers trickle out in a whimper, players hanging on for too long then finally being gently shown to the door.
On Thursday afternoon, United States national team manager Jürgen Klinsmann decided that Landon Donovan’s time had come.
After 156 matches, 57 goals, and 12 World Cup games as a member of the United States national team, Donovan was left off of the 23-man roster for the upcoming World Cup in Brazil, effectively ending his international career. Without question, Donovan is the greatest player in the country’s history and will forever be remembered as a bright star in the United States’ rise to respectability in world football.
Donovan’s place in the history of American sports may be one of the most complicated of any athlete we’ve had in the last 20 years.
It was not always easy for Donovan. When your most well-known nickname is “Landycakes,” you clearly don’t strike much fear into the hearts and minds of the soccer-watching world. Frequently derided for his repeated decision not to test himself against European club competition, Donovan had to prove himself to both American and non-American fans more times than any star athlete in recent memory.
He certainly didn’t make it easy on himself. To describe him as a “reluctant” star would be incredibly generous; it often seemed that Donovan was genuinely annoyed at being in the spotlight. It never felt for a second like soccer was the most important thing in his life. Rather, it was just something he did, something he could walk away from at any second. He always kept fans at an arm’s reach, certainly not rude or difficult but also not especially warm. And yet, any American soccer fan would be lying to you if they said that this moment from the 2010 World Cup wasn’t one of the highlights of his or her life:
Donovan’s place in the history of American sports may be one of the most complicated of any athlete we’ve had in the last 20 years. He is the most accomplished player in the history of the U.S. national team, and this status in nearly any other nation in the world would make him one of the country’s biggest celebrities. But here, Landon Donovan is practically anonymous.
In American soccer circles, Donovan's career has been perhaps the most closely-watched in history. He rose to prominence at age 17, winning the Player of the Tournament award at the 1999 FIFA U-17 World Championship and earning himself a contract with German power Bayer Leverkusen. Donovan floundered in Germany, though, and at his request returned to the United States in 2001 on a loan to the San Jose Earthquakes of MLS. He has flourished in the domestic league ever since, winning two MLS Cups and the 2009 MLS MVP award. He's played abroad a few times on loan during the MLS offseason, earning a particularly large following in England while on loan to Everton in 2010, but to the chagrin of many he never had the urge to make a full-time move overseas.
Really, Donovan does not fit any of the traditional attributes we assign to a superstar. He has always preferred the comforts of MLS rather than challenging himself against better competition abroad. He has never sought the spotlight and has rarely endorsed any product. And, perhaps most uniquely of all, he literally quit soccer for four months in 2012 because he was burnt out. Imagine if LeBron James or Adrian Peterson just decided to sit out for a season because he was “tired.” The Internet might actually explode. With Donovan, it barely made a ripple outside of soccer circles.
To fully appreciate Donovan, one must simply look at his results on the field. Donovan's international career got off to an inspired start; as a 20-year-old included on the United States’ 2002 World Cup squad, he played an instrumental part in the team’s Cinderella run to the quarterfinals. Donovan’s goal in the knockout stage against nemesis Mexico secured a U.S. victory, and he was named the Best Young Player of the tournament by FIFA.
However, Donovan took a step back in 2006. Expected to be the star of that 2006 team, and proving himself the first American capable of competing with the world’s best, Donovan's play in Germany failed to meet expectations. The United States’ disappointing group stage performance (a record of 0-2-1) kept them out of the knockout stages, and Donovan was roundly skewered as a result.
Heading into 2010 in South Africa, there were questions floated about things like “legacy” when it came to Donovan. His performance in the United States’ four games erased pretty much all bad memories that lingered from 2006. While the goal against Algeria to send the U.S. through to the knockout stage will be the most-remembered goal of his career, his other two goals reflected just how far Donovan had come as a player.
This audacious attempt could not have come at a more opportune moment. Having just conceded a second goal to go into halftime trailing 2-0, the team looked flat out uninspired, and the attitude among the many U.S. fans in attendance who had endured the 2006 disappointment was “here we go again.”
Donovan simply wouldn't allow it, though, coming out of the locker room like a man possessed and halving the U.S. deficit within three minutes. The finish itself was a thing of beauty, the angle so tight that only an absolute missile would find the back of the net. The safe, “correct” play would have been for him to slot it across the box and hope one of his teammates would be ready to hammer in the cross. Something had come over Donovan, a kind of selfish desire to lift up his team that fans had been hoping for his entire career. In that moment, he turned the corner and became a legitimate superstar.
If it felt like the Algeria goal cemented Donovan’s star status, then this penalty kick against Ghana proved that it was indeed the case.
As soon as the foul was called and Donovan went to the spot, there was no doubt that the ball was going in the back of the net. The kick itself was one taken with the utmost of confidence; when a right-footed player hits the ball with pace to his right, it means he is feeling incredibly locked in and self-assured. That type of finesse shot is easier for the goalkeeper to save, so the placement must be perfect. Add in the pressure of the moment, and there are a lot of ways an attempt like that could go wrong. But Donovan made no mistake, bringing the U.S. level in a game they would eventually lose on an extra time goal.
What nobody knew then as the United States walked off the field in Rustenberg was that it was the last time we would see Donovan in a critical international game. It is, in reality, probably the exact kind of farewell he would want: abrupt and without fanfare. The U.S. team will miss his clutch goal scoring and tremendous work rate, to be sure, but the game against Mexico and Klinsmann’s comments in the subsequent weeks made it clear that we were not looking at the same player whose three goals in South Africa helped carry his team.
While it was his coach who decided that the time has come for Landon Donovan to step away from international football, ultimately we’ll always remember him as a player who always did things his own way.
