I got an email the other day from the L.A. Galaxy media department. “Postgame notes: L.A. Galaxy 2, Chicago Fire 0 – March 6, 2015” The Galaxy season opener, and a victory for the defending Major League Soccer champions. And it was then that I realized …

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Omar Abdulrahman is the best soccer player in the UAE. He might be the best soccer player in the Middle East. He is good enough that whenever foreigners see him play, they inevitably ask: “When are you going to Europe?” Now and then, Omar has seemed vaguely interested in that concept. He trained for a […]

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The U.S. Soccer Federation today announced Bruce Arena, the LA Galaxy coach and former U.S. national team coach, as winner of the annual Werner Fricker Award — given to “an individual who has worked tirelessly on furthering the interest of the sport of soccer without regard to personal recognition or advancement”. I am not quite […]

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This is a big pat on the back, a career “attaboy”, for Landon Donovan, newly retired soccer player who spent nearly all of his career in Major League Soccer. The league’s Most Valuable Player award will henceforth be known as the Landon Donovan MVP Award, it was announced by the MLS today. (Follow the link […]

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One of my favorite readers alerted me to this one: A look at Landon Donovan’s last Men’s National Team game, the one against Ecuador. Wayne Drehs wrote the piece for ESPN The Magazine, and it was posted to the espn.com site today — but I would have missed it entirely, having spent most of the […]

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I had forgotten the date. A former colleague sent me an email about it, and yes, he was right. It was 25 years ago today that the U.S. national soccer team recorded the most important victory in the history of American soccer. We can say that without reservation, actually, because soccer was languishing in the […]

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This is an odd case, in professional sports. Nearly every professional athlete plays through pain. . When an injury is too severe to play on … he or she returns at the first moment. Often before they were expected to play — or perhaps should be playing. Then there is Derrick Rose.

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This game snuck up on us, a little. In that this could have been the final game of Landon Donovan‘s soccer career, and I’m not sure many of us really had recognized that, aside from the Los Angeles Times. It was not his last match, thanks in large part to the three goals and an […]

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I predicted this a couple of months ago. How Landon Donovan’s farewell match with the U.S. national team, now less than a week away, would be one of the most awkward moments in the history of U.S. soccer. The ramping up of what is going to be days and days of U.S. media and fans […]

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Two reactions, in quick succession, upon hearing today that Landon Donovan will play a farewell match with the U.S. national soccer team, in October. 1. It’s nice that they are giving him a chance to say goodbye. 2. Gosh, the whole thing could be awkward.

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