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A sparkling debut Donovan shows brilliance -- and room to grow
Updated: Thursday October 26, 2000 9:10 AM
LOS ANGELES -- If you close your eyes and listen to Landon Donovan speak, you'd swear you were in the presence of a 14-year-old. He sounds a lot like the kid who mows your yard, and truth be told, there's still a bit of "mama" left in this boy. It was only in the past year, after all, that Donovan stopped bringing a teddy bear along on trips with the U.S. under-17 team. But in his first game with the senior national team on Wednesday, the 18-year-old Donovan proved that, in the soccer world at least, he's fast becoming a man. Playing against Mexico before a hostile, projectile-tossing crowd of 61,072 at the L.A. Coliseum, Donovan came on for the injured Chris Henderson in the first half and was the man of the match, contributing a goal and an assist in the U.S.' impressive 2-0 victory. The first scoring sequence was revealing enough. Early in the second half, Donovan ran onto a sweet through-ball from Clint Mathis, juked to his right past goalkeeper Adrian Martínez and, with a poise lacking in American strikers these days, found the net for a 1-0 lead. Donovan's most jaw-dropping play, however, came a half-hour later, when he worked an exquisite give-and-go with Josh Wolff, lunging at full speed for a left-footed cross that found Wolff streaking in for Goal No. 2. At the postgame news conference, where Donovan's mom proudly snapped photos of her son, U.S. coach Bruce Arena said a remarkable thing about his teenage sniper. "We learned in a week of training that he's got a ways to go as a player," Arena explained, "but he's as good as any American player we have in the last third of the field." Notice the verb tense. Arena was speaking in the present. And he was talking about a player who has made one appearance for the national team. Naturally, Arena cautioned reporters not to blow the results of one friendly out of proportion, and as he found out in training this week, Donovan has a lot to learn, especially when it comes to making fewer mistakes on the ball and defending better when he's in a midfield role. Still, Arena says, "Those are things that we're going to ignore if he can be dangerous going forward in the last third. He's got a great instinct for when to pass the ball, when to take people on, and when to shoot in that part of the field. That's where he excels." The amazing thing was that Donovan almost didn't get into the game at all Wednesday. When left winger Henderson went down with a strained right calf, Arena told Bobby Convey, Peter Vagenas and Joey Franchino to warm up. But as Donovan would recall, "Two minutes later he said, 'I've really got to think about this one,' and he's like, 'Oh, maybe Chris [Albright] should go out left and Landon should warm up [as the second forward.]' Before I knew it, I was in the game." Now Donovan returns to his club team in Germany, Bayer Leverkusen, where he hopes to get a chance with the first team now that coach Christophe Daum has been replaced with former German international Rudi Voller. It doesn't hurt, as Donovan's agent, Richard Motzkin, points out, that Voller is a Donovan supporter who helped bring him to the club in the first place. In any case, if Donovan doesn't get a shot at Bayer he needs to play on a regular basis somewhere -- and soon. "If the only games he plays this year are with the U.S. national team program, then we've got problems," Arena says. "He needs to find a better situation after the first of the year. It doesn't do any U.S. player any good sitting on a bench in Europe." That could mean a loan to another Bundesliga team or perhaps a high second-division club. For now, though, Arena deserves credit for showing Donovan something that neither Daum nor U.S. Olympic coach Clive Charles ever did. Faith. It paid off in spades on Wednesday. Sports Illustrated staff writer Grant Wahl covers soccer and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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