AP, East Hartford :
Landon Donovan set U.S. national team and Major League Soccer records for goals and assists, scored in a signature stoppage-time moment that lifted America to a first-place finish in a World Cup group for the first time in 80 years and won five MLS titles – with a sixth still possible.
Jurgen Klinsmann was hoping for more.
“I think it could have gone even further than that,” the U.S. coach said Thursday, a day before Donovan plays his 157th and final match for the national team in an exhibition against Ecuador.
Donovan burst into the soccer spotlight at the 1999 FIFA Under-17 World Championship, when the U.S. finished fourth and he won the Golden Ball as top player. He made the roster for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and, with his hair dyed blond, scored against Mexico in his national team debut at the Los Angeles Coliseum on Oct. 25, 2000.
Now 32 and struggling to find motivation in recent years, Donovan announced in August this will be his final season, a decision he revealed three months after Klinsmann left the forward off his World Cup roster. On Friday night, the U.S. Soccer Federation will honor Donovan with one final international game, celebrating the career of a player whose initials are noted in the promotional materials to bookend the word “LegenD.”
“He has been the poster boy of the game, for MLS certainly, through that long stretch of time,” Klinsmann said during a news conference at Rentschler Field. “He raised the awareness of the game to new dimensions far before maybe a David Beckham came into the league.”
In international appearances by Americans, Donovan trails only Cobi Jones (164). His 57 goals are well ahead of second-place Clint Dempsey (39) and his 58 assists are more than double the total of Jones, who is second with 22.
But his resume also includes two failed stints in Germany with Bayer Leverkusen (1999-01 and 2004-05) and an unimpressive loan spell with Klinsmann’s Bayern Munich team in 2009. Donovan did enjoy success during winter loans to Everton in 2010 and 2012.
“As a coach, you always want to see a player that drives for his 100 percent,” Klinsmann said. “I wished in a certain way, ah, he could have done a bit more here and a bit more there.”
