Made the trip to the Home Depot Center today and waited two hours until Landon Donovan was done with the training staff. Or the training staff was done with him, anyway. He didn’t practice on this, his second full day back from the Confederations Cup, in South Africa.

And even before he finally came out of the locker room, Galaxy staff had made clear to me that no one associated with the club was going to talk about David Beckham, least of all Landon. “Tomorrow, after training,” I was told. Bruce Arena, Galaxy coach and general manager, would address the topic as well. “To get all the questions answered at one time,” they said.

This is all about Donovan’s fairly blunt criticisms of Beckham’s role with the Galaxy during the 2008 season, criticism excerpted here, at sportsillustratedcnn.com — or further boiled down on my previous entry on this blog.

It took a few days for this story to get any traction, but it finally did once newspapers over in Britain picked up on it today and espn.com rewrote one of those stories. At this writing, the espn.com version of the story has generated almost 1,500 comments. Which seems like a lot.

As agreed upon, Landon didn’t talk specifically about Beckham. The closest we got to it was my asking him about addressing “the big topic” tomorrow.

Said Landon: “It’s not a big topic. Uh, we’ll see. I’ll let you know.”

Things we did talk about: His health, the trip home, the Confederations Cup experience, his goal celebration in the Brazil game, his seemingly sudden return to national prominence.

Let’s do this in a Q&A format, so you get the entire Landon Experience. He has just emerged from the locker room with an ice bag on his right thigh. His eyes are a bit bloodshot. He seems tired; no, exhausted. He apologizes for making us wait. He does an interview in Spanish for the one other journalist waiting, then he turns to me. He answers more directly and in fewer words than usual.

Question: No offense, but you look kind of thrashed. Do you have a cold?

Answer: My mother asked me that, too. My body actually feels great. Just sleeping-wise, I’m still getting sorted out. And, mentally, obviously, that whole tournament took a toll on you.

Q: When did you travel?

A: Monday night. Midnight. So I flew all day Tuesday. To Amsterdam and then L.A. Two 11-hour flights.

Q: Was the Confederations Cup life-changing in any way?

A: The Confederations Cup itself is not life-changing. … I’m becoming the soccer player I want to become, and that was a great opportunity to show it and I’m proud of that.

Q: Your celebration of the goal against Brazil: Could you take me through that?

A: Just raw emotion. I didn’t even think about it. There was no premeditation. It was the culmination of … you know, nobody knows the work that I do to better myself, but when it comes out in that way, it just feels good.

Q: And my lip reading was that you were saying, “Me, me, me.” Is that correct?

A: Uh-huh. … I have no answer for you. I just did it. That was it.

Q: So it was your subconscious speaking?

A: I probably was just proud of myself.

Q: Is it weird to be rediscovered? The last time some people saw you, you were being pilloried during the 2006 World Cup.

A: I live what I’m going through every day. Other people don’t. I can see that, from the outside, that it seems like, “What is this great transformation in the last week?” But this has been a long time coming. I’m proud of it.

Q: What sort of treatment are you getting?

A:  Just getting worked on my body. Just resting. My back, fully engaging everything. I want to make sure that I’m ready for Saturday (vs. New England, in Carson).

Q: Are you hoping or planning to play Saturday?

A: Hoping to play. I’m not going to gain really a lot by training today. Tomorrow, maybe. Getting myself ready.

Q: Had you ever played five matches, every minute of five matches, in 14 days?

A: Five in 14 days? That seems like a lot. I don’t know. Usually that would be two-and-a-half weeks. But that seems like a lot. I would say no.

Q: Do you have a sense that more people are watching you right this minute than before? That more people are aware of you?

A: Probably. I can’t really answer that. When I got back Tuesday in the airport there were a lot of people there waiting and it was pretty cool to see that, that people cared enough to show up.

Q: The fake Landon Donvan Twitter account. What’s that about?

A: No idea. It’s fake. Someone mentioned it to me, and Jaime (Cardenas, Galaxy official) mentioned it again today, and I have no idea where it came from.  There’s been Facebook and MySpace accounts. I can’t worry about that. It has nothing to do with me.

Landon then prepared to leave, telling Galaxy officials to “get some rest” — when it seemed as if he was the one person there in the hall who needed it most.

And the current Beckham schedule:

Friday, July 10: Rejoins Galaxy.

Saturday, July 11: Watches Galaxy play Chivas USA at the Home Depot Center.

Monday, July 13: Trains with the club, meets the media.

Friday, July 16: Plays for the Galaxy against the Red Bulls in the Meadowlands, in New Jersey.