The Boy Who Would Be King

Landon Donovan has been, undoubtedly, one of the bright lights of the American soccer scene over the last decade. His play in the 2002 World Cup gave American fans a tantalizing glimpse at a truly creative player wearing an American strip. Alas, came 2006, with the US in a challenging group, Donovan was a shrinking violet against the bigger, more physical Czech Republic yet redeemed himself in a truly courageous performance against Italy.

Even more vexing is the perception that Donovan is a callow boy. His failure at Bayern Leverkusen in addition to his intermittent flashes of brilliance in international play accentuates this perception. This article does not exactly disabuse skeptics of this notion. In the article Donovan says:

“Sometimes in this league, we play a midweek game in front of 6,000 and you
think: this stinks. Now with David, these have become real soccer games all the
time. Other teams are reaping rewards, too. Now we get to play in real games and
take it all seriously because of the spotlight.” (Emphasis mine)

Note to Galaxy fans who paid their money to watch a midweek game in which poor Landon was bummed out: You threw your hard earned bones down on a game that wasn’t real.

Also:

“The main thing on a week-to-week, day-to-day basis, it’s what I’ve been doing
to prepare myself to be successful in training and the next game,” he said. “I
didn’t always do it in the past. We’d play on Saturday, then it was kind of
ho-hum to get through the week. Now it’s become ... this is my job and it’s what
I do, and I feel it would be like letting myself down if I’m not taking things
more seriously.”

At age 26, Landon Donovan finally figured out what it took to be a professional.

2010 is around the corner - time to man up and prove your brilliance, pal.