With news yesterday that the Los Angeles Galaxy’s other high-priced superstar is off to Europe for a winter loan spell with a big-name club, we get a chance to go in-depth on one of the more pressing, ongoing questions in MLS:
Just why is Landon Donovan so annoying?
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Okay, he’s arrogant. A certain amount of that goes with the territory. After all, he makes his living cutting in front of people and trying to defeat them. A Google search of “Landon Donovan” and arrogance turns up a modest but noticeable 4,510 hits.
(Donovan + jerk = 4,530.)
It really doesn’t help that he gloats, though. Trash-talk is never appealing, particularly with this clean-cut Captain America thing he’s got going.
(Donovan + a**hole = 3,010.)
He’s also dangerous on a soccer pitch – an A-major damage-dealer for Canada’s hated soccer rivals to the immediate south. But his fondness for his own ability still seems out of step for a man who’s been a big fish in the tiny pond of MLS, but has yet to prove he can bring it on the world stage.
(Donovan + hate = 21,000.)
But now, Lad Landon is getting another chance. Just as Boy Beckham bounced off to AC Milan, Donovan has signed a short-term scrimmaging deal with Bavarian boot boys Bayern Munich. His total previous first-team European experience – also in the Bundesliga – consisted of seven games and no goals for Bayer Leverkusen in 2004-05.
(Donovan + gerbil = 605. I don’t have a joke here. I just like googling gerbils.)
He is a man whose attitude invites attack. Some harder-core fans rip Donovan over his alleged sexuality. You won’t get that from me. It’s petty and completely irrelevant to what happens on the pitch. I don’t give a flying fig if Landon is aroused by trees, Volkswagens or sugar-coated breakfast cereals.
(Donovan + love = 83,000. It ain’t all bad!)
These same fans bought up every pink streamer in every dollar store in the Golden Horseshoe prior to the Galaxy’s visit to BMO Field last May. The idea was to visually taunt Donovan on this same irrelevant point. It backfired on them, though. Landon didn’t play, and the Toronto pink streamer market collapsed. Demand is so ludicrously over-supplied right now, you can’t give the things away on street corners to this day.
(Donovan + pink = 22,600.)
Yes, he was the leading scorer in MLS with 25 goals – but how much of that came from gorgeous passes and crosses from Beckham? And now he seems to be following Beckham’s lead across the pond.
(Donovan + overrated = 7,580.)
Landon Donovan is a good player – very, very good in MLS – but his global superstar status has more to do with hype and self-confidence than with anything that has ever happened on a soccer field.
(Donovan + underrated = 2,610.)
I wish him well at Bayern, but I believe we will see him back in Our Little League – to paraphrase the great Humphrey Bogart in the last act of Casablanca – “soon, and for the rest of his life.”
(Donovan + sweetheart = 4,590.)
Onward!