Donovan learns whole new ballgame — well
The San Diego Loyal is unbeaten through three matches. Should we now declare Landon Donovan a masterful soccer coach?
Of course not, but this seems fairly evident about Donovan in his first coaching gig:
He’s not walking on the ocean floor.
In other words, he’s not in over his head, despite never having coached even a youth team before joining the Loyal in June 2019 for their 2020 launch into the United
Soccer League’s championship division.
The Loyal have won twice on the road since their first game ended in a tie.
While the 2-0-1 record denotes nothing more than a nice little start — one that could take a hit Sunday night, when the Los Angeles Galaxy II comes to University of San Diego’s Torero Stadium (7 p.m., ESPN+) — it’s notable that Donovan’s club has shown it can adapt and improve.
Isn’t that what all successful sports team do?
Consider how Donovan’s club has responded since it fell behind Las Vegas 1-0 in its March 7 opener at USD.
Over the next five halves, the Loyal outscored opponents 4-1.
That’s only 225 minutes of soccer. Just a blip.
But there were challenges to be overcome, and they weren’t trifling.
Start with the 1-2 punch in the opener that staggered Donovan and served him notice that, while he may have been a very good soccer player — at his peak, he was widely considered the best American player in the world — the coaching biz can be be a whole
different ballgame.
In a matter of minutes, Donovan saw one of his better players, defender Joe Greenspan, go down with an injury from which he didn’t return, and his team fall behind because a Las Vegas player suddenly channeled Lionel Messi.
Stunning the capacity crowd of 6,100 that night, Junior Burgos clouted a perfect shot of some 35 yards into the upper left corner of the goal.
Donovan — who won a record six MLS Cups, two with the Earthquakes — knows soccer excellence when he sees it. And he’d just seen it, several minutes into the first half of his first match as a coach.
“You just throw your hands up and say, ‘OK, he’s definitely not going to score another goal like that all year, maybe not again in his career,’ ” Donovan said a few weeks later, “and that team won’t score another goal like that, and maybe no other team in the league will score a goal like that.”
The rest of the match served up spirited but rather ragged soccer. Yet, S.D. Loyal averted defeat.
Importantly, Donovan didn’t chalk up the stunning goal merely to an opponent’s burst of excellence.
He noted that the goalscorer had room to operate before and after a teammate found him with a quick, deft pass. While walling off a defender beyond the field’s mid-stripe, the assisting player headed the goalkeeper’s long pass.
“We had (just) one defensive midfielder, and there was space to either side of him,” Donovan said. “In our second game, we had two midfielders playing side by side, to give us a little more cover and to clean up second balls in that area.”
Also before the second game, a 2-1 victory at Tacoma, the coach took a long look at his lineup. And, he went rather bonkers, inserting nine new starters. That’s unheard of.
The third game took S.D. Loyal to Utah for a match last Saturday against the league’s defending champion. As previously noted, the challenges were numerous and rare. Neither team had played a match in four months, owing to the coronavirus pandemic, but S.D. Loyal also had to deal with high altitude and heat to which the players weren’t accustomed.
Donovan and staff got the players to buy into a ball-control approach, forcing the opponent to chase. S.D. Loyal defenders, led by Grant Stoneman, had a strong game, leading to the 1-0 victory that afternoon. Not only did Stoneman score the only goal, he completed 90 of 97 passes, a big number, as the defense maintained the prescribed slow tempo.
Three matches, no defeats. Not bad.
But there are 11 games to play.
“I, in particular,” the 38-year-old Donovan said last month, “am trying to learn and keep growing.”