I'm basing my opinion solely out of the clip which may have been out of context...

But, GTFO here Landon with your BS

We can argue all day whether Landon was talented enough to make the roster at the expense of someone who did. I personally think he was a better option than players who were taken.

But in the clip, his argument seems to suggest/imply that he should have been taken because he "gave a **** about US soccer and cared about what happen to US soccer after the tournament". Implying that others (i.e. the German-Americans) didn't and would "never set foot in this country again after the tournament".

And? What's your point Landon?

Listen, I of course want my players to love the US and the country they play for. But you know what else I want more? Talent. To win. And yeah, I don't want that to come at the complete expense of pride in the country you are representing but I will gladly take the more talented player that gives me a better chance at winning who is at worst ambivalent about US soccer but is giving their all to win over the guy who bleeds red, white and blue but has significantly less talent.

And exactly which German American do you think should have been kicked back to Berlin to make space for you Landon? The infamous Bavarian Chris Wondolowski? Or how about Hessen's own Jozy Altidore? Or are you suggesting that the manager should have unbalanced the roster and kicked out a midfielder to accommodate you solely because of your undying love for the US?

It's the same jingoistic crap that Bruce Arena spouted at that time. Neither Bruce or Landon are the arbiters in deciding who cares enough to play for the USMNT. If he had solely argued that he was a more talented option than players who were taken, I would have agreed with him. But as soon as he brought in that "caring for America/US Soccer" BS, he lost me.

Quote:

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And exactly which German American do you think should have been kicked back to Berlin to make space for you Landon?

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18 year old Julian Green.

Then say "I was a better player than Julian Green" not "I was more American than Julian Green"

Dre_00 said:

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Then say "I was a better player than Julian Green" not "I was more American than Julian Green"

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Both at the time.

Some cliff's notes from stuff outside the clip:

- he didn't seem to say this as if he would've been a direct replacement for any of those guys… he seemed to be saying this as a parting shot to JK for his overall selection strategy.
- he doesn't think anyone would've believed him then or now, but he knew he wouldn't start in the WC and he was good with that. Says he knew he could help off the bench.
- he didn't mention names of who he was talking about, but in the flip-side he did single out Jermaine Jones as someone who he could tell did care, so he wasn't against all dual nationals, just ones that weren't going to try to gel with the squad.
- after some pushback from Mo (dual national with Nigeria), he admitted that if he hadn't been good enough for USMNT and Canada came calling (he's dual with Canada) that he absolutely would've gone to Canada.
- but then he called out the other guys on the couches and said something to effect of "you guys know the guys I'm talking about and you know I'm right but I'm the only one with the balls to say this." And none of them argued back. Going back to my first point above, I have a feeling this is something that gets talked about behind close doors a lot… you get "Americans" coming in who don't want to fit in culturally with the rest of the team and this is bound to happen. It's human nature (unfortunately)
- Several times Clint said that he knew what Donovan meant and it's the guys who don't want to be there when times are hard who bothered him.


I'll also add that I didn't like Donovan at all before the shows but after 1.5 hours of two episodes, I've got a new found appreciation for him. Same goes for Jozy (who I unfortunately railed on here). These episodes are good to watch and lots of little nuggets about behind the scenes stuff. I'm surprised this show hasn't gotten more attention, especially when so many on here have Paramount+ for UCL.

Thanks..that's good stuff....

I wonder if that's why Brooks isn't getting called in.

I'm not even sure if this was about Green. Green, like most of the German-Americans who have been defended here IS actually American.

However, there was one player on that roster who arguably was a mercenary, and was American by technicality not by blood or family, who was also a forward, and who basically took the Jurgen offer because he thought his homeland would never make any major tournaments. (Which is hilarious now considering his country then qualified for Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup (and the US did not). In fact, I'm surprised I dont see anybody blame him for some kind of karmic retribution in regard to our failure to qualify in 2018.

Aron Johannson could easily be viewed as a player who may have been actually better than Landon Donovan in 2014, but IMO he also fits the bill as someone who would not have been viewed as part of the "team" at that time.

However, I am not sure that Landon Donovan's point was about "Landon Donovan vs Player X"

IMO, the failure was about building a team. We took John Brooks, Jermaine Jones, Julian Green, Timothy Chandler, Fabian Johnson, Aron Johannsson, and to a lesser extent Mix Diskerud to that World Cup and none of them played for the US through the youth squads except Diskerud. That's over 1/3 of the roster. I think Donovan's point was more about him offering something to a United States team that Jurgen Klinnsmann clearly didn't give a **** about in terms of how he viewed a team.

Theres a rational disagreement in there that a reasonable conversation can be held about either way. What made it seem more like a personal grudge was his son gloating about it on Twitter the day of the selection.

JJxvi said:

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Theres a rational disagreement in there that a reasonable conversation can be held about either way. What made it seem more like a personal grudge was his son gloating about it on Twitter the day of the selection.

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Wasn't his kid like 14 at the time?

I mean, in no world does Donovan not rate ahead of Davis and Zusi at minimum (and I say that as someone who was a Dynamo season ticket holder in the early 2010s).

Need to watch the whole show to get the full context, but it's tough to argue that he wasn't worth a roster spot at the time as at least a supersub and for veteran leadership.

I think the whole point comes down to Jurgen failed at building a cohesive team, that didnt take into account known weaknesses in choosing depth.
You KNOW Jozy is injury prone going into the tournament. You obviously dont know that he is going to get immediately injury, but you absolutely need to have a player on your team that can help you provide veteran attacking depth IF (imo when was very likely) he got injured. Your probably planning on not playing him a full 90 in any group game.
Landon was a player you could bring on in the 2nd half to play just about ANY of the attacking positions, or even bring him on and take a defender off to go all out to score. he was a player wiith proven on-field chemistry with every one of our attacking players. It was inexcusable to leave him off going into the tournament, and it became more inexcusable after.

That team still did well at the World Cup, and he was right about specific players on that team imo. I dont see him as saying he is against all dual national players, you can tell jsut by body langauge (and interviews) which players are trying to buy into the concept of the team. They dont have to pretend to be patriotic americans (though I do think there is something to having pride for your country in the Olympics and World Cup). They DO need to buy into fighting for their teammates the full 90 minutes, this isnt a club team of mercenaries.

Sidenote unrelated to Landon...

I think it's interesting that the word "failure" (either in context of team building, roster selection, results, or what have you) is being used a lot in reference to 2014. Don't get me wrong. I think JK was underwhelming at best. But you could make a very strong argument that 2014 was the USMNT best World Cup performance after 2002.

They clearly outperformed the 2006 and 2018 teams (*cough*). They lost in the Rof16...as did the 2010 and 2022 teams...but they progressed from a much more challenging group than those two teams did. Not bad for a team that apparently had a lot of players that didn't deserve to be there. Can you imagine how much we would have dominated if we had brought Michael Parkhurst and Clarence Goodson instead of Timmy Chandler and John Brooks? Or Joe Corona instead of Fabian Johnson? Oh wait a minute...he's Mexican. He probably wouldn't have worked out.

Dre_00 said:

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Sidenote unrelated to Landon...

I think it's interesting that the word "failure" (either in context of team building, roster selection, results, or what have you) is being used a lot in reference to 2014. Don't get me wrong. I think JK was underwhelming at best. But you could make a very strong argument that 2014 was the USMNT best World Cup performance after 2002.

They clearly outperformed the 2006 and 2018 teams (*cough*). They lost in the Rof16...as did the 2010 and 2022 teams...but they progressed from a much more challenging group than those two teams did. Not bad for a team that apparently had a lot of players that didn't deserve to be there. Can you imagine how much we would have dominated if we had brought Michael Parkhurst and Clarence Goodson instead of Timmy Chandler and John Brooks? Or Joe Corona instead of Fabian Johnson? Oh wait a minute...he's Mexican. He probably wouldn't have worked out.

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Oh boy, let's not turn this into a nationality issue.

I was never a LD fan, but he absolutely should have been on that roster ahead of Wondo, Davis and Green. Experience matters at a WC, and having a guy off the bench who has scored WC goals is a great asset that JK chose to leave at home. It wasn't a good decision at all.

I took LD's comments not so much about German or Icelandic Americans, but about the time and effort he and others had put into the USMNT over the years. I think he is saying he would have been a better clubhouse presence than an 18 year old who hasn't been with the club. He's probably right, but I just want players who can help the team, and I think he would have been a more valuable bench piece that some that were brought, especially the MLS crew.

Yeah, they didn't dive deep enough into that to make it clear it wasn't about nationality but more...commitment? Not sure that's the right word, but the other guys seemed to understand exactly what he was talking about.

Kate thought he was talking about nationality too and was pressing him on it, but I agree with y'all that he was not.

He was definitely doing a bad job explaining his thoughts, but I took it not as a comment on specific nationalities, but rather a comment on guys who don't really give a rip about advancing US soccer, or give a rip about the country itself because they've never lived here and never will.

I'd bet a coke he has no problem at all with guys like Pepi. Shoot if it was allowed, I'd bet a coke he'd have no problem if a DACA kid was called up to the team. Those are guys who care about soccer in the US because their kids are gonna be raised there too. It's an issue of core motivation.

I genuinely appreciate the dual guys we have now who work hard and have no problem coming in to play in bad CONCACAF conditions… but I long for a day when our domestic talent pool is robust enough that we don't need to look for duals who live abroad and were in youth programs for another country but didn't make the senior squad - so now they want to switch. To me, even if a guy works real hard, if at the end of the day they're gonna raise their own kids overseas and hope they make it in a different federation - that bothers me a bit.

That difference in commitment may never translate on the field. Guys like Jedi will probably always try hard, and big kudos to them. But Landon said there's something special about a national team, and I agree. I'd rather see a team full of guys that want to raise their kids here - whatever color their skin is or accent they have.

But I'm also a weird cat. I can barely watch high-level college sports anymore (and I used to love it) because I know that a very high percentage of them don't really give a rip about the school or an education. Transfer portal and NIL killed it for me, and then I happened to teach at a college part-time to fill an emergency need and that helped me bury it… my football athletes gave nothing in the classroom.

To be fair to JK, if he was never going to play LD during that World Cup, then I have no problem with him leaving LD off the final roster. It doesn't make sense to bring a guy just to bring him with zero intention of putting him on the field. We can debate whether LD should've been on the roster, but it might've been worse if LD was on the roster and glued to the bench the entire time with no opportunity to play. I can imagine how huge a problem that would've caused in the locker room.

Landon should have been on that team, with one leg better than some other forwards. It was nothing more than a personal vendetta by klinsmann.

jessexy said:

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To be fair to JK, if he was never going to play LD during that World Cup, then I have no problem with him leaving LD off the final roster. It doesn't make sense to bring a guy just to bring him with zero intention of putting him on the field. We can debate whether LD should've been on the roster, but it might've been worse if LD was on the roster and glued to the bench the entire time with no opportunity to play. I can imagine how huge a problem that would've caused in the locker room.

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So I am supposed to give JK slack for not bringing LD because he wouldn't play LD? So can I not give him slack for any decision not to play LD?

If he had decided Donovan wasn't going to play then I would question that decision. I think all of us would have loved a sub in of Donovan over Wondo in the Belgium match.

How well has Klinsmann done in his coaching after the WC?

Aston94 said:

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jessexy said:

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To be fair to JK, if he was never going to play LD during that World Cup, then I have no problem with him leaving LD off the final roster. It doesn't make sense to bring a guy just to bring him with zero intention of putting him on the field. We can debate whether LD should've been on the roster, but it might've been worse if LD was on the roster and glued to the bench the entire time with no opportunity to play. I can imagine how huge a problem that would've caused in the locker room.

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So I am supposed to give JK slack for not bringing LD because he wouldn't play LD? So can I not give him slack for any decision not to play LD?

If he had decided Donovan wasn't going to play then I would question that decision. I think all of us would have loved a sub in of Donovan over Wondo in the Belgium match.

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I mean, I literally said that I would rather have LD coming off the bench against Belgium and taking the place of Wondo in that spot earlier in this thread. It's written here in black & white.

What I'm saying by this post above is that if JK had zero intention of playing LD, then it's best that he left LD off the roster rather than LD creating a distraction in the locker room for the entire tournament. We see how that turned out this past World Cup with the GGG and Reyna situation.