The Los Angeles Galaxy are MLS Cup Champions for a record fifth time. Landon Donovan has received the sweetest end to his swan song, a record sixth MLS Cup as a player. He’s the all time leader in MLS and the USMNT in almost every offensive category. I could sit here and recount them all, but that’s what the many Donovan and MLS article have been doing for the past week and will continue to do. An extra MLS Cup didn’t change his legacy that dramatically. I could pile onto the love fest, but I did that back in October. Just take the part about the photo album, scrap the ‘few blank pages’ part and insert the hattrick against RSL and MLS Cup.
Yes, Donovan is the greatest MLS and US Soccer player of all time and the face of soccer in America. The stats, the eye test, and fandom all say that. But I hope that changes. I hope the player who surpasses Donovan is in a youth academy system right now. If we’re lucky, maybe he’s one of the young guns just about to break through in MLS or someone Klinnsman has called up recently.
I had a teacher from high school who would give a little speech to all his seniors the week before graduation. The gist was “if high school is the best time of your life, you have done something horribly wrong. You have failed as an adult, professionally or personally in some regard.” If Landon Donovan is the greatest player in US Soccer history, then we as a soccer nation will have failed. Our academy and development programs will have failed. Our domestic league will have failed. Our national team program will have failed.
I want MLS to become one of the top leagues in the world. I want an MLS team to win CCL and the Club World Cup. I want the USMNT to do better than ever before in each World Cup. I’d be elated if we could one day win the World Cup. Little of this is possible if our best player ever just retired.
One day, in the US Soccer Hall of Fame, I hope there is a section of statues of the greats, similar to the Star Plaza outside Staples Center. I hope this majestic hall is lined with marble and has national monument feel to it. I hope there is a statue of Landon Donovan there. But I hope that Donovan is the Jerry West of Star Plaza, the first great, but surpassed by each since. His statue is accompanied by others who came after him and were greater. Donovan shouldn’t be Joe Montana or Peyton Manning. He should be Bart Star, the example you want to eclipse. Stand on the shoulders of giants and do things we know they never could have done. Break their records. Impact MLS and the USMNT in ways never thought possible. Have signature moments that is more historic than the 2010 World Cup goal against Algeria. Get to Champions League and make those two stints with Everton look easy. Win the World Cup.
With how far we have come, I have full faith one American if not many can grow and develop into something greater than Donovan ever was. With this league and this soccer nation projecting upward (increased salary cap, more players trying out Europe at a younger age, the youth and coaching systems), not producing a player better than Donovan will have been a failure. We will have done something horribly wrong at multiple levels of the federation.
Donovan went to high school when soccer players didn’t get girls. Perhaps the varsity quarterback will always have dibs on the Prom Queen, but I hope one of the Plastics at Leominster High School thought Diego Fagundez was fetch. If Landon Donovan could come about when soccer wasn’t cool and MLS was a baby with no money; there was no comprehensive domestic development system. Imagine what can happen now that those things are becoming reality? Surely we can put a player with the same talent level as Donovan in a position to achieve greater feats. If we put enough young talent in the proper situation, can we not achieve greater feats on a league and national team scale?
MLS starts its 20th season next March. It isn’t in high school anymore. We have some big decisions to make, and I hope we make the ones that continue progress. I hope MLS 3.0 isn’t the glory era. I hope the USMNT 2018 World Cup is better than 2002 and 2014. With what US Soccer has done in my lifetime, I believe we will. With what MLS has done in 20 years, I believe we will. Donovan was great, but he too shall be surpassed. He wasn’t the end-all be-all. He was the beginning.
I hope Landon Donovan isn’t the best. I hope the best is yet to come.
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