Been donkey’s years, as the Brits would say, since I did a list. It’s time. This one is going to be a little apples-and-oranges. My favorite road trips as a professional sports journalist. Some considerations: –What is more important? The travel? Or the event I was there to cover? –Or will we almost certainly get […]

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We made a fuss over the statue of David Beckham unveiled a couple of days ago at the former StubHub Park stadium. The first at a Major League Soccer stadium. It should have been Landon Donovan; he put in more years, scored far more goals won more championships. For Beckham, the Los Angeles gig always […]

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The LA Galaxy on Saturday afternoon will unveil what is thought to be the first statue of a former player to be displayed at a Major League Soccer stadium. The club said it will be No. 1 in “a series of statues” that will stand just outside the stadium in the new Legends Plaza at […]

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That wasn’t such a chore, was it? A mere 421 days after the U.S. national team lost in Trinidad and failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup … and the Yanks have a coach! That would be Gregg Berhalter, recently head man of Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew. Not a glamor hire, certainly. Berhalter […]

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And it’s only Tuesday! It has been a rocky few days for Landon Donovan, maybe the greatest player in American soccer history and, at the moment, maybe the most controversial. On Saturday, came the  Twitter ad in which Landon is holding a green scarf with lettering that reads: “My other team is Mexico” … and […]

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The tournament begins June 14 in Moscow, when host Russia faces Saudi Arabia in the opening match of the 2018 World Cup. So it is getting late to be talking about the U.S. failure to compete in the greatest competition in global sports. But I am going to do just that, one last time. (Well, […]

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Not that it matters much anymore, with print journalism in collapse, but for fun we can revisit a topic that would have been of great interest to sports journalists of 10 or 20 years ago: Where is “home” to the latest great athlete? Like, say, Chloe Kim, snowboarding gold-medallist at the Pyeongchang Winter Games? Chloe […]

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Ah, so it wasn’t just his missing the game. Not all about “don’t know what to do with myself.” It also was about getting paid. According to a newspaper report in Mexico, Landon Donovan will be paid $180,000 per month by the Liga MX club that has brought him out of retirement. In North American […]

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When Landon Donovan first retired, in December of 2014, his U.S. National Soccer Team record for international goals seemed unassailable, at least in the short-to-mid term. And I wrote that. His closest pursuer was Clint Dempsey, and the Texan was on 38 goals, 19 behind Donovan’s total. Then, Dempsey went on a scoring spree, banging […]

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What is Landon Donovan doing? In short, he has decided, for a second time, to resume his soccer career. He first retired at the end of the 2014 Major League Soccer season, when he was only 32. He went out with a bang — with his sixth MLS Cup championship, the Galaxy’s fourth during his […]

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