Not a good weekend for American soccer people or the league most of them play for.

Landon Donovan’s comeback from retirement suddenly ended as he went off at halftime with a hamstring injury and his LA Galaxy went out of the Major League Soccer playoffs in a shootout.

Bob Bradley, the first American to coach in the Premier League, is winless in four matches with Swansea City, including a 3-1 thrashing at home against Manchester United.

The coach of Italy’s national team said he did not call in Sebastian Giovinco, Toronto FC’s star forward, for World Cup qualifiers because “he plays in a league that doesn’t matter much.”

So, American soccer … still in search of some global respect.

Donovan, the most prolific scorer in both U.S. soccer history (57 goals) and in MLS (112 goals), made a late-in-the-season return to MLS after most of two seasons in retirement, and scored one goal in six regular-season matches.

In three playoffs games, he added an assist, but otherwise was fairly quiet.

After the Galaxy was eliminated, on Colorado on Sunday, he was asked whether he would try to come back next season, when he would be 35, and he said it was “not the time” for that discussion.

It’s a bit hard to get a sense of whether Donovan remains something close to the player he was before he retired. His game always was built on speed and quickness, and some of that is gone.

But couldn’t the Galaxy use Donovan’s brain in midfield, with Steven Gerrard expected to retire? And does Donovan want to be that guy, distributing from midfield?

Maybe that was the end. If so, his final game was a sort of whimper, compared to his retirement, back in 2014, when he went out with an MLS Cup championship.

Bob Bradley walked into a tough situation, at Swansea, which was already in the lower reaches of the Premier League standings, with four points points from seven matches, when he took over.

However, Swansea’s situation has deteriorated further, with one point from four matches, leaving them in the relegation zone. Though two of the three defeats were at Arsenal and home to Manchester United.

The vultures are circling. English writers suggest the fans do not support Bradley, preferring the man he replaced, Francesco Guidolin, or the other man who interviewed for the opening, Welsh and former Manchester United hero Ryan Giggs.

Richard Jolly, a respected English football writer who is published regularly in three countries, called Swansea “insipid” in its 3-1 home loss to United, adding that Swansea has “regressed since Bob Bradley’s appointment”.

The Guardian, however, notes that Swansea has had “by far the most difficult” league schedule, through 11 games. A big factor in their tied-for-the-bottom standing.

Bradley presumably also has the backing of the club’s American owners.

North America’s top professional league, MLS, has been held in low esteem by European soccer for a long time. Note coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s ongoing preference for anyone playing in Europe for a place on his U.S. national team, even if that player doesn’t speak English.

Now, Italy’s coach, Giamberto Ventura, has dismissed MLS as a rinky-dink league, and Giovinco’s 43 goals in 65 Toronto matches as irrelevant, saying: “The number of goals he scores is less important because with the quality he has got, he is bound to make a difference in that league. The problem is that if you play in that type of league, and you get used to playing in that type of league, it becomes a problem of mentality.”

MLS perhaps can expect this sort of criticism, given that its clubs have such difficulty in winning the Concacaf Champions League. The last MLS champion of the Concacaf tournament was the Galaxy in 2000. Since then, Mexican clubs have won all but two of the continental club championships, with Costa Rican sides getting the other two. And Europe is not particularly impressed by the Mexican league, anyway.

Also, MLS seems to be sliding toward a pattern of pursuing European players at the end of their careers, and few have had the impact of a David Beckham. Ashley Cole and Gerrard did not exactly tear it up for the Galaxy, for example.

That leads to soccer people in Europe, especially, believing MLS is not a strong league where results and goals should matter on a basis equal to a batch of Euro leagues.

For the U.S., the work of winning the respect of the rest of the world goes on, as usual.

A victory over Mexico in World Cup qualifying on November 11 would help. So would a couple of favorable results, and soon, for Bob Bradley at Swansea, perhaps over against beatable sides Crystal Palace, Sunderland, West Brom and Middlesbrough between now and Christmas.