I already know in advance how poorly this will be received in large sections of the Earthquakes fanbase, and that’s precisely why I’m writing it.
When San Jose won its first MLS cup, in 2001, I was 11 years old, completely in awe of Landon Donovan’s otherworldly talent. He was a grown man to me but, at 19, a boy wonder to everyone else. Even the old and grizzled American soccer fans, perhaps even especially them, thought he walked on water just as much as I did. He was the pride and joy of San Jose, and indeed, the league.
By 2005, he was plying his trade for the hated Los Angeles Galaxy, and to the fans of the Black and Blue, he was “Judas,” a name he wears to this day. Even if you think you know the story of his relationship with San Jose, you should read this article, which in my opinion is the best thing that’s ever been written about it.
It never sat right with me. It seemed to spit in the face of the way he made me feel as a kid. That’s why I want to make the case today that we should properly celebrate Landon as a club legend, essential to our history, and who we can claim as at least a bit of one of our own. Here’s why when he visits San Jose on Saturday, March 24th for a friendly with Club Leon, we should welcome him with a standing ovation, not boos:
Without Landon, there are no stars above the crest
Donovan’s first foray into professional soccer, at the age of just 17, was at Bayer Leverkusen, in Germany’s Bundesliga. Famously, he struggled to settle there, and was allowed to leave on loan (more on that later) for what ended up being four consecutive seasons from 2001-2004.
It took precisely no time at all for the American #10 to make a splash in San Jose, scoring 12 goals in 30 appearances in his first year, including a crucial one in the MLS Cup Final that sent the game to overtime, where the Earthquakes claimed their first league title. Moreover, the way he played was simply scintillating, charismatic and electric and with a bit of boyish swagger. He was the reason to go to the games in an otherwise depressing Spartan Stadium in a league with mediocre baseline quality and somewhat bizarre competitive dynamics. He was, in short, a genuine star, and I think all of us at the time knew that he was destined for bigger stages than what San Jose could provide him.
The 2002 season was not as successful, with a 2nd place finish in the West followed by a limp first-round playoff exit. But that only served to set up Landon’s greatest contribution to San Jose soccer history: the 2003 campaign.
Donovan was good throughout the season, banging in 12 goals in 22 league games, surrounded by a bunch of names that are now recited as club favorites like Agoos, Dayak, De Rosario, Corrales and more. But it was what happened in the playoffs that cemented Landon as a club legend: staring down the barrel of a 0-4 aggregate defeat in the western conference semifinals, he earned a free kick that led to the first of 4 goals that would send the tie into overtime, one of which he scored himself. In overtime, he assisted the golden goal himself. It was the greatest comeback in league history, and the highlights never get old. What many Quakes fans seem to forget is he then went on to score the golden goal in the conference final, and two in the MLS Cup final itself, giving the club its second title in three years, and last to date.
For most clubs, club legend status is earned not necessarily by length of tenure, but what you gave to the cub. Paul Gascoigne is a first-tier legend at Tottenham Hotspur but spent even less time with that club than Landon did before he made his big money move elsewhere. In my opinion, a four year tenure that spectacular, with so much team success, is something to be thankful for. Especially because there’s no way it would’ve happened without him.
If the move to LA didn’t sit well with you, don’t blame him
I think it really must be emphasized again that San Jose never owned his rights, nor did MLS during the time he played in the Bay Area. He was repeatedly loaned from Leverkusen as he attempted to build up to Bundesliga-quality, and when he asked to be sent back to America, San Jose just happened to be the club where he was allocated. He actually said years later he’d only been to the Bay Area once before despite growing up in Southern California, and had more or less nothing to do with the choice of where MLS put him.
After his four spectacular seasons on loan, he finally returned to his parent club in late 2004 for a chance with the Leverkusen first team. As far as the club was concerned, and in fact as far as Donovan himself was concerned, he was destined for a great career in Germany’s top flight, and would never stoop to a league as small as MLS again. He made 7 appearances and 2 starts, now aged 22, but still struggled to settle and was far from a regular. As the 2005 MLS season was about to begin, Donovan asked for his coach to transfer him back to the states, surprising everyone.
From there, there’s admittedly a bit of chicanery, but none of his doing. Alexi Lalas, by this point the GM of San Jose, had effectively traded away his MLS rights for Ricardo Clark, which is not an insane decision considering no one thought he would return any time soon, and Clark would go on to make almost 300 appearances for the organization and key 4 MLS Cup Final runs. Dallas Burn had the top allocation spot for Donovan when he decided to return, and the Galaxy paid a king’s ransom (in the form of recent league-MVP Carlos Ruiz) to snag the spot back from him.
As with all transactions at the time, MLS negotiated the transfer fee and paid it at the league level, using its allocation mechanism to determine his final landing spot. It’s not unreasonable to argue that MLS’s well-documented tendency to make rules up as they go along, and the fact that ownership of the two franchises with claims to Donovan was…the same person (seriously!), meant that his allocation to Galaxy was hardly a fair process. But that still leaves the league, Lalas, and Phil Anschutz with more of the blame than the player himself.
Even if it was up to him, you shouldn’t hold it against him as betrayal
I think sports fans don’t realize how insecure a professional athlete’s career is, and American soccer fans in particular don’t seem to appreciate how little our heroes make in return for that insecurity, at least until recently. Players get paid to play, and very few get to dictate the terms of where they do, yet we demand some kind of overarching loyalty to a club that would drop them in an instant if their performance dipped just because they happened to collect paychecks at that club based on being arbitrarily assigned to it early in your career.
Even if Landon had made the choice himself, I wouldn’t hold it against him. If we expect loyalty to anything, it’s perhaps to the place that raised you, and for Landon, that was precisely the Los Angeles area that he was returning to. His soon-to-be wife lived in the area, as well as any number of other family members. He’s a Southern California boy by birth, and by choice: he still lives there to this day. Since when do we hold it against athletes for choosing to go home, amongst family?
Moreover, the reality in San Jose was also increasingly ugly: it was an open secret that a soccer-specific stadium was not in the cards in the Bay Area, and the team was on the verge of leaving. No sane superstar would sign on to a club in such a state.
Yet in spite of all of this, Landon has nothing bad to say about San Jose. He told me in 2016, for example, that he regarded it as the place where he became a man. He told me he got those feelings of fond nostalgia every time he came back. In that excellent article linked above, he even expresses regret for how his move from Leverkusen to Los Angeles went down, feeling like San Jose fans were wronged, be it his fault or not, and wishing he had done something differently so that they wouldn’t have been.
I’ll confess to a personal affection for Landon coloring my views here. In my time covering soccer, I found him to be one of the most open and thoughtful people to come across. I thought his candid discussion about suffering depression and the balance between life and soccer is both brave and important.
But the real source of that personal affection is the way he made me feel as an 11-year-old boy in those crappy bleachers behind the Casbah in 2001, rolicking his way to our first MLS Cup. And that’s as good of a reason as any to toast the man for the hero he is.
