A few weeks ago my favorite player of all time just announced that he will be retiring at the end of the MLS season. I guess I didn’t fully come to grips with the fact that he was my favorite player until he made the announcement but I’ve more or less known it for awhile.

I grew up watching Landon Donovan play for as long as I can remember. He was one of the first players I can recall seeing play at that rinky dink field, Spartan Stadium. I remember going to those games every week. I remember his stupid ass blonde hair he rocked for about a year when he was 19. I remember seeing him live making fun of Brandi Chastain’s celebration after he had scored in the MLS Allstar game. I remember him dribbling past German defenders and being so unlucky not to score in quarterfinals of the World Cup. I remember seeing him score a hat trick against Ecuador in what is probably the best game I have EVER seen a player play. I mean he didn’t just score three tap ins, he scored three of the best goals I had seen all in one game. There were games all throughout his career of him playing for the national team where he if he had not been on the field, the United States would have been embarrassed outright. I remember him going to LA Galaxy after he came back from Germany and him getting booed every time he touched the ball, but still managed to shut the crowd up with one of the sickest goals ever. Even then I couldn’t hate him. This was back when a lot of the MLS games were not even broadcast. You had to get some crazy cable package to watch them and even then the commentary would be in Spanish. I remember that game against Algeria where he cried like a little bitch after scoring the winning goal in the 87th minute to send the USA to win their group and make it to the next round. I thought for sure after all of these accomplishments Landon would surely have gone to Europe like many of the American players. But he never did. He played like shit for Leverkusen and couldn’t keep his spot at Bayern Munich after just six games. But he did two short stints for Everton in which he was voted Everton player of the month BOTH times. Had he made a concerted effort to play in Europe Landon could have started for a UEFA Champions League side no problem. We are talking about a player that won Best Young Player at the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Every single player that has won that award has become a World Class Player if they weren’t already then.

Now that he is retiring he is the highest scorer in MLS history, soon he will have the highest number of assists in MLS. He leads the US Men’s National Team in goals and assists (by a large margin) and is tied for most number of MLS Cups. He has won American Soccer Player of the year a record number of times and league MVP in MLS a record number of times. He fucking owns that league.

But again I think he fell short. I think he is making a mistake retiring at age 32 but now from watching him play for so long I almost understand it. The truth is that Donovan has been tired for a long time. He took a sabbatical from soccer to do other things and has never truly felt comfortable in the spotlight in my opinion. You see the way he talks and acts and he looks restless with the game.

This is quite a shame really because he was such an incredible talent. But it was wasted because he allowed himself comfort and didn’t push himself to the next level and so did not end up with the greats of the world like he could have. I’ll miss him a great deal but an important lesson can be gleaned from his legacy.