Donovan content to sit out for now
SANDY, UTAH Landon Donovan will be on his couch in Southern California today watching his former team play a World Cup qualifying game against Honduras without him.
“It’s difficult,” Donovan told USA TODAY Sports. “But at the end of the day I can set aside any disappointment and cheer for the team just like anybody else would. It’s been really fun to watch these past few weeks.”
The fact that the Americans are comfortably in first place in the sixteam regional standings without Donovan is a testament to the team’s growing cohesion and a reminder that time stops for no one, not even the USA’s all-time leading goals and assists leader. They enter the match (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) with a 24-game unbeaten streak (22-0-2) in qualifying at home.
Donovan, mentally and physically exhausted, took a three-month sabbatical from the national team. Coach Jurgen Klinsmann says the door is open for Donovan’s return, but he hasn’t exactly laid down a welcome mat.
Klinsmann did add Donovan to the provisional Gold Cup roster, which is a bit like being put on junior varsity. Even so, Donovan doesn’t see Klinsmann’s actions as a slight or view his exclusion from the World Cup qualifying rosters as penance.
“Though it’s difficult, it’s also very good for me because, to be honest, there was some complacency, and this forces me to really earn my way back in,” Donovan said Monday.
So he will continue to try to prove he belongs through his play with Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy and in the Gold Cup in July.
DaMarcus Beasley has played alongside Donovan dating to their days on the under-17 national team and through three World Cups. While Beasley is having a renaissance of his own as a starting defender on Klinsmann’s squad, he has no doubt he will be joined by Donovan next summer in Brazil for the World Cup.
“Yeah, of course!” Beasley said. “Once he gets four or five more games, he’ll be good as new. Going into the last part of qualifying, I hope he goes into the Gold Cup and shows he belongs. We all know what he does; he just has to show it.”
Donovan said he was not focused on what he’s missing with the national team. “I don’t spend much time getting any scoop,” he said. He’s focused on the Galaxy and his public awareness campaign with the Skin Cancer Foundation (SunBlunders.com). (His father was diagnosed with the disease.)
“At this point I’m just an outsider looking in who wants to be a part of it, just like many players,” he said.
And today, he’ll be watching from the couch. Screaming like any other fan? “If we score,” he replied.