Revolution at Los Angeles Galaxy, 3.20.11

 There aren’t many U.S.-born-and-bred soccer players in the history of the sport that have moved people to say, “I’ve got to see that guy play live and in person, and I’ll pay for the privilege.” You could make a solid case that there has only ever been one: Landon Donovan.

Donovan may be our best-ever player, but he may also be our most widely despised, judging by how Mexican fans react to him when our national teams meet and by how European fans gloated over his underwhelming professional efforts in Germany. (And, to go forward in time a bit from this particular March game, judging by Red Bulls’ striker Luke Rodgers's profanity-spiked assessment of Donovan after a match in May.) A friend of mine who used to play soccer professionally in South Africa summed up what I take to be the prevailing view of Donovan during most of his career so far. After seeing the Galaxy play the Revolution in Foxboro a couple of years ago, my friend observed in his precise diction, “Oh, Landon Donovan is so arrogant. But he is such a strong player. The best on the field.”

I used to feel a little cold towards Donovan myself. He’s the type of guy who sometimes barks at his teammates, and he has the rigid posture and near-perpetual scowl of one of nature’s snobs. However, like Everton fans who sometimes chanted U-S-A! during his recent successful stint with that club in the English Premier League, I now not only appreciate Donovan, I really like him. He’s basically a well-prepared pro who tries his tail off, and what’s not to like about that? When you look at him that way, some of his perceived arrogance begins to look more like dignity mixed with a strong urge to win. And for those Mexican fans who love to hate him, at least he gives Spanish-language-TV interviews in fluent Spanish. I’ve also heard he can speak German. Not many of us dumb Americans can do that.

Donovan didn’t have a great game in the Revs’ opener in LA, but he had a good enough one that those who shelled out specifically to see him were not disappointed. He made some characteristic attacking runs out of the midfield punctuated by good passes (one of which was horribly, comically flubbed by the Galaxy’s Chad Barrett), made a couple of steals in the box in the second half, and twice headed shots on goal that might plausibly have gone in.

His team probably should have prevailed. The Galaxy had three goals called back, one of them on a questionable call on a play involving Revs’ keeper Matt Reis bumbling a cross that Juninho promptly collected and put into the net. The impressive Brazilian later scored for real on a beautiful shot from the edge of the box. It was the kind of blast that has the player landing on his shooting foot, the ball exploding off his laces without much spin and moving erratically from side to side and up and down as it screeches forward. Reis had zero chance. The Revs were lucky to get the final 1-1 result and go home with their point.

Shalrie Joseph had a strong game for the Revolution. He’s the engine of the team, winning balls in midfield and distributing, often out wide to the wings. He scored early on a header off a cross from Marko Perovic (who later went down with an injury), and he almost scored again in the second half with a shot that glanced off the right post. Who else? Franco Coria, the Revs’ imposing new center back from Argentina, had a strong game, particularly in the air. He must have won at least a dozen headers, many of them clearances in the box. Another tall guy, the lanky rookie midfielder Stephen McCarthy, got his first start and looked promising. He has a surprisingly soft first touch for someone who would probably look more at home on a basketball court.

The game was otherwise notable for its hard but clean play—the ref gave zero cards—and for the rain, which poured down like a monsoon the entire match. At first, the ball was skipping off the turf like a stone off a pond’s surface, but by the end of the game the ball was waterlogged and the field sodden and slow. In other words, the rain at first made the game faster, then at some point much slower, yet another of life’s examples proving that there can be too much of a good thing.

Speaking of which, the other day I was watching a Premier League match (I can’t bring myself to call it “the Premiership”—could anything sound more pretentious to American ears?), and the announcer said something like: Of course, they wet the pitch these days before matches to make the game faster. That “of course” leads me to believe that most fans are already aware of this fact, but it was news to me.