The rest is just details.” It neatly summed up his feelings. When Donovan was growing up in Redlands, Calif., about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, he had a T-shirt that read: “Soccer is Life. “Landon has come up with these different philosophies during his career that maybe have steered him a little bit wrong on the field,” said Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena, who previously coached Donovan with the national team and, like Klinsmann, was critical of his sabbatical from the sport. I was never that and it’s probably hard for people to accept that, including coaches and owners.” “That’s part of what gets people frustrated, because they want to put athletes in a certain box,” he said, “and then they want you to be this way, and then you can be their hero. He says he probably should have walked away after the 2010 World Cup, when he was at the top of his game but actively struggling with his place in it. He can still perform at the highest level - Donovan scored three goals and set up a fourth in the Galaxy’s most recent playoff game, a 5-0 victory that eliminated Real Salt Lake in the conference semifinals - but for him, soccer has not been all-consuming for a while. “I think some athletes are wired that way,” he continued, citing the basketball stars Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.īut clearly he is not, and so he is walking away.ĭonovan is firm in his decision to retire when the Major League Soccer season ends for the Los Angeles Galaxy - either in the Western Conference finals, the first leg of which will be played here Sunday against the Seattle Sounders, or in the M.L.S. That self-awareness, and his willingness to express it, have made him appear more human, which is not always a desired quality in star athletes. If other widely recognized athletes build fences around themselves and their thoughts, Donovan, more often than not, has laid out a welcome mat to his mind. “No question,” said Donovan, who announced in August that he intended to retire from the sport.ĭonovan, 32, has sought counseling, struggled with depression, watched his celebrity marriage disintegrate, reconnected with his father and even taken a four-month break from soccer in 2012-13 - laying out his vulnerabilities for all to see. He has made no secret that the responsibility and the trappings that came with being the standard-bearer of American soccer for more than a decade had long ago become a burden, and that in recent years he had begun to view his talent not so much as a gift, but as an obligation. For someone who can make playing soccer look so easy, Landon Donovan has never been shy about conveying how hard the sport can be for him.
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