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 staring at Jurgen Klinsmann, the petty and vindictive German coach, began the other day when Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated had a chat with Landon.
Some light was shed on some of the issues between player and coach.
For instance:
–Landon was asked if he talked to Klinsmann about the final game. Landon said: “I did not.”
–Landon was asked if he received an apology from Klinsmann’s son, who tweeted his glee when papa left Landon off the World Cup team, leading Klinsmann to say a “huge apology” was in order. Said Landon: “I did not.”
–Landon conceded he thought long and hard about the concept of a farewell game, but decided to go ahead with it when fans began telling him how they were looking forward to seeing him play one more time.
Oh, my goodness, this is going to be a mess. Starting from about this coming Tuesday, when the media get a chance to talk to Landon and Jurgen.
And with the World Cup more than three years away … what else are they going to talk about? Who Ecuador might start?
Every single soccer journalist in the nation is going to write about Player and Coach.
Landon will say things like, “I’m just happy to be with the national team, and what went before is not important.” Then he will be left alone.
Klinsmann will not get off so easily.
Those in Hartford for the match will ask Klinsmann if Landon will start. They will ask if he will take off Landon with a few minutes to play so he can get the standing ovation he deserves.
They will ask if he regrets not taking Landon to Brazil given how Chris Wondolowski (one of the forwards who went instead) missed that sitter in added time of the Belgium game that would have put the U.S. in the quarterfinals. You know, the shot Landon would have put in the net.
And Jurgen will be asked varieties of this every single day. It will be torture for him.
And I love it.
In the SI interview, it becomes pretty clear that the Landon farewell is Sunil Gulati’s idea — which we surmised back in August.
The president of the U.S. Soccer Federation may be the man who has committed the national team to Jurgen pretty much forever, but I bet he was ticked off when Jurgen announced the World Cup team — early, surprising the federation — when everyone else in the USSF (including Gulati, no doubt) thought well, of course, Landon will go to Brazil.
I feel bad for some of the players, who will have to make a point of not seeming too friendly with Landon, lest the petty and vindictive (P&V) Klinsmann take note and hold it against them later. And yes, this could happen.
But Landon will be cool with it. He will already know how they feel … and how they are forced to keep their distance. (In the case of Michael Bradley, the midfielder who in 2013 said “If we’re going to play more than three games in Brazil, we need Landon”, won’t even be in Hartford, pleading commitments to the MLS’s Toronto franchise. Or did Jurgen not invite him?)
Now that I think of it … it will be Klinsmann doing most of the squirming. And that is how it should be.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Joseph D'Hippolito // Oct 7, 2014 at 10:28 PM
Paul, this whole thing stinks for several reasons. I would imagine there’s a lot more conflict between Klinsmann and Gulati over this game than we’re hearing. It also wouldn’t surprise me if both Klinsmann and Gulati got Hell from Arena over this idea. especially since the Galaxy is fighting for the Supporters’ Shield. That’s probably why Donovan is going to play just 20-30 minutes.
That’s also probably why Bradley and Dempsey didn’t get called in. I’m guessing Vanney and Schmid raised Hell with Klinsmann about inviting them. Since Klinsmann will need Bradley (and probably Dempsey) for this coming WC cycle, perhaps he figured discretion would be the better part of valor. Besides, Bradley and Dempsey don’t need to face more international competition to develop. Yedlin and Gonzalez, however do.
As far as Wondolowski is concerned, I saw Donovan miss a sitter in MLS Cup 2012 at the Home Depot Center, when I covered it for the Houston Chronicle. Lots of good players miss sitters under pressure, so there’s no guarantee Donovan would have converted against Belgium. Wondo’s bigger problem in that game was not passing to an open Dempsey, who was in a better position to convert.
And, for the record, I have less use for Klinsmann than I have for used toilet paper.
But if Tim Howard made only half the saves he made, Wondo wouldn’t have been in that position — and we’d all be talking about Klinsmann as the EX-coach of the national team….
2 Joseph D'Hippolito // Oct 8, 2014 at 12:18 PM
Here’s something else that nobody has addressed: Among the players in the United States’ World Cup pool, Donovan was the *only* one who had previous experience with Klinsmann as a coach, when Donovan was on loan to Bayern Munich during Klinsmann’s tenure there. Donovan saw first hand the kind of nonsense Philip Lahm described in his autobiography: excessive emphasis on training, minimal discussion about tactics, a de facto player rebellion after six-to-eight weeks. (Sounds like Klinsmann hasn’t changed all that much.) Essentially, Klinsmann cutting Donovan is no different than the Mafia assassinating Jimmy Hoffa and burying his body where nobody could find it. Granted, I’m taking that metaphor to an absurd length. But Donovan is a pretty honest guy who knows people pretty well and can smell BS from miles away. It wouldn’t surprise me if Klinsmann decided to “bury the evidence” by cutting Donovan.
Leave a Comment