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Donovan's big chance 19-year-old should get starting turn vs. Honduras
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Every indication is that 19-year-old American whiz kid Landon Donovan will get his first World Cup qualifying start on Saturday when the U.S. meets Honduras here at a sold-out RFK Stadium. On Thursday, according to sources, U.S. Soccer made sure that Donovan wasn't on the nationwide media conference call in an attempt to keep any extra pressure from mounting on the bottle-blond Californian sniper. Keep in mind, this is the same Donovan who couldn't buy a start in last year's under-23 Olympic tournament under then-coach Clive Charles. But U.S. national team DT Bruce Arena appears to have much more confidence in Donovan, not least because he has shown well in MLS this season with the San Jose Earthquakes, contributing seven goals and 10 assists to the Western Division leaders. Plus, with forwards Clint Mathis, Brian McBride and Josh Wolff out with injuries, Arena needs Donovan on the field. Is the kid ready? "I hope so," Donovan told me Thursday at the team hotel. "At the beginning of the year I probably would have said no, but after playing in MLS games I'm confident and comfortable at this level. I'm ready for whatever happens, for sure. This week has gone really well in training." Spin watchIt wasn't surprising a couple of weeks ago when Arena began trying to minimize expectations by saying that he didn't expect the U.S. to clinch a World Cup berth until its Oct. 7 game in Foxboro, Mass., against Jamaica. This, after all, is a coach who is trying to spin things in his favor. But Arena's assertion that the U.S. would only qualify if it takes six points in two games this week (the Yanks play at Costa Rica on Wednesday) is flat wrong. Granted, there is no way the U.S. can mathematically clinch on Saturday, but a win Saturday and a tie in Costa Rica (i.e., four points) would likely put the U.S. over the top. And what is the goal in qualifying but to win at home and tie on the road? Forget the spin for a moment: By any reasonable expectation, the U.S. should hope to qualify this week, injuries be damned. U.S. ticket policy discriminatesU.S. Soccer and D.C. United got some deservedly negative press in Thursday's Washington Post about the ticket policy for Saturday's game. Turns out that the folks selling tickets were instructed to give nosebleed seats to fans with Hispanic accents and Honduran-sounding last names, while callers who sounded like "American fans" were to be given the best seats available. I'm all for creating a pro-American atmosphere at U.S. games -- indeed, I have no problem with giving the first crack at seats to D.C. United season-ticket holders and D.C.-area soccer clubs, Honduran clubs included -- but screening callers for perceived ethnicity crosses the line. Unfortunately, Tom Boswell's Washington Post column also perpetuates the ridiculous claim that the majority of soccer fans are violent hooligans. Boswell suggests that we read Among the Thugs, Bill Buford's book on English hooligans. Go ahead and read it (it's a good book), but I would also suggestpicking up Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch to get a view of the delightful, aggro-free passion that drives 99.9 percent of the world's soccer fans. Fiasco in SeattleThe conventional wisdom has always been that if soccer ever gets big in the U.S., it will do so despite, not because of, the folks who run U.S. Soccer. Further evidence comes courtesy of former U.S. secretary general Hank Steinbrecher, who is almost single-handedly torpedoing efforts to bring world-class soccer to Seattle. Quick background: In order to help secure public funds for the new Seahawks stadium under construction, the group building the stadium (led by team owner Paul Allen ) pitched it as a football/soccer facility that would have soccer dimensions and be able to house a possible MLS team and future U.S. national team games. "Wonderful!" said the Seattle community, which has its share of soccer fans and voted to help support the project, which was promised to have a grass field. Now, however, Seahawks coach/GM Mike Holmgren wants to install FieldTurf, the new-age artificial turf that wouldn't get torn up by football games and the ever-present Seattle rain. One problem: Even though FIFA has approved FieldTurf for all soccer events except the World Cup finals, sources say there's no chance that U.S. Soccer will play World Cup qualifiers on the fake stuff. Enter Steinbrecher, the first-class bloviator who recently sang the praises of FieldTurf for the Seattle stadium. "In my opinion," Steinbrecher told The Seattle Times, "FieldTurf is better than all but the top 10 percent of the grass fields in the world." Well, guess what? Steinbrecher is a paid consultant for the folks who bring you FieldTurf! So now, as Steinbrecher lines his pockets, the football people in Seattle can say, "Look, even the soccer people support FieldTurf!" But what will Seattle soccer fans get in return for their financial support? No national team games (using a temporary grass field over the carpet would be expensive, impractical and possibly dangerous) and no MLS team (the last thing the league wants to do is pay exorbitant rent to play in another giant NFL stadium on fake turf). The best solution for a possible MLS expansion team in Seattle would be to modify cozy Memorial Stadium near KeyArena: Install a grass field, expand the partially roofed digs to 20,000 seats and kick out the weekly high school football games -- to, say, the new Seahawks stadium, where the FieldTurf will undoubtedly be able to withstand the wear and tear. And, oh, yes, it would help to find an MLS investor in the area willing to cough up $15 million or so (plus a few more million to modify Memorial Stadium, since the Seattle voters surely won't be hoodwinked again). Maybe Steinbrecher would be willing to contribute some of his hard-earned cash? One last wordThis just in: Sports Illustrated has discovered, from Yugoslavian birth-certificate information, that midfielder Preki Radosavljevic is actually 47 years old. Kidding. But Thursday I did run into Radosavljevic, the 38-year-old, left-footed wizard, as he got onto the hotel elevator. "Too many people wrote me off too early," Radosavljevic told me, and he's right. After being dumped by the Kansas City Wizards, he's lighting it up for the Miami Fusion these days, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him working his magic as a sub (perhaps even as a starter) against Honduras on Saturday. Questions, comments, story tips: Click here to contact me.
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