And so it continues: What seems like the majority of U.S. soccer fans wanting to know where the hell Landon Donovan is, and … and well, how dare he!?! not report for every training session. An hour early. The day before.

The latest misguided critic to weigh in is an ESPN blogger named Jeff Carlisle, who came right to the point about halfway through this post: “Donovan does owe us something,” which he buttressed by citing Landon’s contractual status with the L.A. Galaxy.

The author must be one of those guys still in mourning over the end of the reserve clause — which bound ballplayers to their clubs in perpetuity. Which was fine … aside from being unconstitutional.

Let’s try explaining this one more time.

Landon Donovan owes us nothing. Neither does any other athlete or entertainer — or any public figure some of us come to believe belongs to the public.

It borders on the bizarre, our demands that they show up and act or play for us. And many of us then are the same people who will be only too happy to tell the bum to get lost when his performance fades with age.

Landon Donovan has been the best attacking player in U.S. soccer history. (If you want to repeat that and drop out “attacking”, I won’t argue.) Of all athletes who deserve some empathy from us fans, Landon is near the top of the list.

If an athlete is willing to forgo payment — and let’s assume Landon Donovan has, while he is on sabbatical from the Galaxy — and his team is willing to accept the athlete back when he is ready to play … where is the moral dilemma? Where is the grounds for outrage?

The current round of yammering was touched off by Landon’s appearance in an auditorium at USC, where a student tweeted several of his statements. (And, later, his agent, Richard Motzkin, sent along some video to The New York Times.)

Apparently, the sight of Landon sitting on stage talking to college kids when he should have been running wind sprints with the Galaxy sent some people into fits of rage. How dare he!

Interestingly, Landon said he would be willing to play for the U.S. national team, “if given the opportunity”. (Jurgen Klinsmann, the ball is back in your court.)

Landon apparently is now in Cambodia on a 10-day excursion. He will return to the Galaxy, he said, in the final week of March. When he believes he will be rested and healed.

Good for him. And if the time off — since he and the Galaxy won the 2012 MLS Cup, he has been away from the game for not quite three months — helps him to return to the Galaxy and the U.S. national team with the old vigor and enthusiasm, then every fair-minded fan/analyst will look back and say: “It was good that he took a break when he did.”

The either-or, play-or-retire choices being promulgated by the short-sighted apparently don’t allow for the “when I am ready” assessment performed by the soul that lives inside Landon Donovan’s body.