We will keep this short. Jurgen Klinsmann‘s personal animus towards Landon Donovan, the greatest soccer player in American history, is plain for all to see, and the longer he carries on his one-way feud, the worse it will be for the 2014 World Cup campaign.

But this latest bit of U.S. squad maneuvering by the grudge-holding German takes this beyond the realm of “plausible explanations” for leaving Donovan out of the national side.

That would be the appearance of Stuart Holden in the heavy U.S. defeat to Belgium (4-2, and it wasn’t that close, from all accounts) in Cleveland tonight.

Consider:

–Landon took off three-plus months after playing nearly nonstop for almost two years. He returned to the L.A. Galaxy in late March, and has played in eight Major League Soccer games since April, going 90 minutes in seven of them. The Galaxy are 4-4 in those games, and he has two goals and three assists. That is not Landon at his best, but he certainly is fit by now, despite what Klinsmann might say.

(And doesn’t the greatest player in U.S. history get a bit of leeway, where the national team is concerned? Shouldn’t he be in there, you know, if he turns into the offense-generating monster he has always been?)

–Stuart Holden apparently is a good guy, and popular with players and media, but he has had two knee surgeries since March of 2011 and has played in only seven first-team matches in more than two years, five of them with Sheffield Wednesday this year. Yet he was called into the U.S. camp — certainly not on the basis of results or performance — and came into the game in the 81st minute against Belgium.

Landon, playing regularly for the Galaxy, after four months off … Holden not playing regularly for anybody in two years, with no goals … and there he is, playing for Klinsmann.

This is personal. Let’s not even consider it open to discussion.

Klinsmann is not yet finished punishing Landon Donovan. That is what this comes down to.

It is incredibly petty of him, and if the U.S. fails to qualify for Brazil 2014, it will never be forgotten or forgiven — nor should it be.