Landon Donovan, captain of the Los Angeles Galaxy, told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday that he will apologize to David Beckham for the manner in which Beckham learned of Donovan’s critique of his play in the 2008 season — but that he does not intend to apologize for the content of the remarks.

That is, that Beckham was not a good captain and not even a good teammate for the second half of the disastrous 2008 Galaxy season. One that Donovan believes Beckham gave up on sometime around the time that coach Ruud Gullit — apparently hand-picked by the Beckham camp for the Galaxy job — was fired, on Aug. 11.

Donovan’s criticisms of Beckham were excerpted recently in Sports Illustrated from a soon-to-be-published book by Grant Wahl entitled, “The Beckham Experiment.” Is was from those excerpts that Beckham found out that Donovan had criticized him.

Donovan says he wishes he had told Beckham directly, and last year, when Donovan was bothered by Beckham’s seeming resignation.

Beckham, who missed the first half of the season after extending a loan to AC Milan till the end of the Italian League season, is due to return to Los Angels on Friday, and will be in the AEG box Saturday night at the Home Depot Center for the Galaxy match with Chivas USA. He is scheduled to train with the team on Monday as well as speak to reporters. On Tuesday, the team travels to New York and practices there on Wednesday, and plays the Red Bulls on Thursday. Beckham is expected to return to his position at midfield for that July 16 match.

I talked to Donovan after the Galaxy’s training session today, and we went into a bit more depth on a variety of Beckham-related topics.

To set the scene: We are walking from the practice field toward the Home Depot Center. Landon seems quite calm and collected. Not nervous or edgy or combative. He knows he has an issue to deal with but it doesn’t seem to be stressing him, even though his criticism of Beckham has become a sort of global soccer story.

Question: Are you going to talk to Becks at the first opportunity?

Answer: Yes, I am. At this point in my life, I’m not an ignore-the-white-elephant-in-the-room kind of person, so as soon as we can, we’ll talk.

Q: Do you expect it might be an awkward situation?

A: I don’t know if it’s awkward for David, but the reality is I owe him an apology. And if we have some other issues, we can talk about it.  The method, the way I went about it, was improper and I realize that that was a mistake, and I need to let him know that, and I have already. We’ve been in contact.

Q: Directly? Or one of those your-people-talked-to-his-people kind of things?

A: We’ve been in contact.

Q: Do you feel as if this has become a global story, considering his celebrity?

A: I don’t know. I would guess that. I haven’t sensed it. I don’t know. I haven’t been asked about it a ton. I don’t think anyone has read the book yet.

Q: Your comments about him were made last year. Does it seem odd to be apologizing for them now?

A: What’s unfortunate is that it affects David as much as anybody and the reality is it’s the past for the rest of us. So those things were said and felt in the past, and we’ve started to move on, all of us.

Q: I take it most of your criticism came in the latter months of the season, yes?

A: It was late in the season at some point. … People read the book … All you get from the excerpts, they’re giving you the stuff that’s exciting to sell the book. But when you read the book, we all like David, we all wanted him to be here. We just didn’t know what was going on and felt like our team was being sabotaged somehow and all we wanted was a professional environment.

Q: Has he given any indication he plans to be with the club longer than these final three months of this season?

A: No. I don’t know. That’s a question for him and maybe a question for Bruce (Arena). I’m just worried about, well not worried, I’m interested in 1) as a person and as a man, settling whatever we need to settle and 2) if that makes us better on the field, great.

Q: You are not giving up the captaincy to him, as you did in 2007, right?

A: David has already, I think, acknowledged that I’m the captain and Bruce has told me that. For us, it’s not an issue.

Q: As team captain, does that give you a platform to critique the performance of teammates?

A: I appreciate being the captain, but I would be this way regardless of the sitatuation. I would talk to him. That’s just the way I am now. I feel like I’ve matured a lot in the last six months. I think David will understand that. But I would tell him that if I was out for the rest of the year not playing. I owe him that, to tell him how I feel, and tell him that what I did was wrong. I owe him that as a person, whether he’s David Beckham or David Jones.

Q: And you are not going to apologize for the content of your remarks?

A: I don’t think there is any culpability in what I said. That’s the way I felt. I’m never going to apologize for that. I want this team to do well, first and foremost. When someone isn’t doing well, I need to talk about it. The way I did it is not the way a man should go about it.

Q: Did you think, after your criticism of last year, that perhaps you would eventually regret the way it happened, confiding how you felt to someone writing a book rather than to Beckham himself?

A: I had thoughts at the time, thinking this isn’t the best way to do this.

Q: Do you worry about MLS, and that it might be seen as a place where older guys from Europe can come over and coast?

A: As players we always say we respect the most the big-name players who come over and do things the right way. David was doing that for a part of the season.

Q: And then he stopped playing as hard when Gullit was fired?

A: At some point, something happened. … It seemed to coincide with that point.

Q: Your conversation with David: Is it something you are dreading?

A: I’m looking forward to it, actually.

Q: Is this the sort of thing that could become a distraction for the whole team?
A: It’s only a distraction if you let it be. I don’t worry about things I can’t control. I hope David is the same way.

Q: While you were at the Confederations Cup, the club won a couple of times and is back in the playoffs chase. Is this a crucial time in the season?

A: Our team is in a much better place than last year. Much more stable. Coaching staff, everything. We have a chance to be in the mix.

Q: And you’re not worried David will come here with something less than full enthusiasm?

A: He’s not going to waste time at this point in his career. He’s not going to pout and moan. With (forward) Alecko (Eskandarian) here, and me back, and David coming, we have a chance to be a really good team.