March | 2010 | Obsessedsportsnut's Blog

March 9, 2010

Landon Donovan and US Soccer

Filed under: soccer — Tags: soccer, USMNT — Jonathan Lee @ 6:35 am

It’s a well-known fact that I love sports. I love following and cheering on my favorite local teams. I love watching good games, when I dont have a rooting interest in either team. Often though, I follow certain games because of certain players. You can often find me reading up on high school recruiting sites to find the next star athlete. I would follow these players from high school to college to the pro leagues. I love to see how a player’s career develops and how they mature as an athlete.

One player I follow extremely closely is Landon Donovan. He’s just entering his prime playing years, yet he’s already arguably the greatest soccer player the US has ever produced. He started out his professional playing career with the San Jose Earthquakes in 2001 (technically Bayer Leverkusen in Germany…but that’s a whole different story). As a 19 year old player, he led the Earthquakes to MLS Cup Championships in 2001 and 2003 and soon became the face of US soccer. He eventually found his way to the LA Galaxy (via Bayer Leverkusen in Germany again) where he’s blossomed as the best player in the country.

His career with the national team is equally as impressive, as he’s the top scorer of all time with the national team. He’s current 4th with 121 appearances, and will surely pass Cobi Joni’s by the end of his career as the most capped player ever for the national team.

Recently, Landon Donovan was loaned out to Everton in the English Premier League for 10 weeks. It started after the end of the MLS season in January until March. Club soccer at the international level is different than what we’re accustomed to in the United States. At the club level, the team owns the “rights” to players. There are very few trades in soccer, like we’re accustomed in the US. If a team wants a player, they have the opportunity to buy the rights of the player. This is called a transfer fee. This past summer, Real Madrid paid a record breaking fee of $132 million to Manchester United for the rights of Cristiano Ronaldo. This is only for the rights, and doesnt include the player’s salary (which came out to be over $100k/week for Ronaldo).

Another concept that’s different is “loans”. For a very stacked team, a player might not be able to crack the starting roster and might be left on the bench. A manager might want to give this player more playing time, so he will loan this player to another team for a set amount of time, ranging from a couple months to a whole season. A lot of times, the player will come back to his home team at the end of his loan spell, but if the player performs really well, his new team might arrange to buy his contract out and keep the player.

For the case of Landon Donovan, the LA Galaxy loaned his services to Everton in the offseason. The idea was for Landon to get playing time against top quality opponents during the MLs offseason and come back to LA at the beginning of the season. David Beckham had a similar deal with AC Milan. Beckham’s purpose was for him to impress Fabio Capello, coach of the English team, against better opponents to win a spot on the English Team for the World Cup.

Everton has always been traditionally one of the stronger teams in England, but have been hit hard with injuries this season. David Moyes, their coach, brought in Landon Donovan hoping that he’d be able to minimize the damage. Little did he know the impact that Landon Donovan would have on the team.

After his very first home game, Landon Donovan received a standing ovation from the Everton faithful, who are a very very knowledgeable and appreciative fan base. In his time at Everton, Donovan played extremely well and led the team to upsets over Chelsea (#1 in the standings), Manchester United (#2), and Manchester City (#5). He also led Everton to a tie against Arsenal (#3) in an away game.

I knew Landon would perform well in his short 10 week loan at Everton, but I was shocked to see him perform this well. In what might have been his last home game against Hull City last week, he scored a goal and assisted on another. The Everton fans went crazy, started chanting USA, and was so vocal in their appreciation for Donovan for what he’s given the team. After the game, he did a “victory lap” around the stadium, and soaked in the love that he received from the fans. Watching clips of it on youtube, one couldnt feel prouder for him.

Now, his loan is ending this week and he might play his last game for Everton this coming Saturday. He wants to stay at Everton, the owners and managers want him to stay, and the fans want him to stay. However, Bruce Arenas, the manager of the LA Galaxy, wants him back at the beginning of the MLS season. Negotiations are going on right now to see if Landon can get his loan renewed.

For the sake of US Soccer, Bruce Arenas needs to suck it up, and let Landon stay. First off, while Landon will be hard to replace, Arenas can go without him for a bit…his squad is strong enough that they’d be able to compete without Landon’s services in the short run.

American goalies, Tim Howard, Brad Friedel, and Kasey Keller, have all made their marks in Europe before, and the world soccer community recognizes that the US produces some amazing goalies. However, a field player (defender, midfielder, striker) has NEVER performed this well in Europe before at a consistent basis. The closest has been Clint Dempsey at Fulham in England, but his career hasn’t been consistent and has been marred by injuries.

Freddie Adu, Demarcus Beasley, Claudio Reyna, Jeff Agoos, and Eric Wynalda have all tried to make it in Europe, but none of them have ever succeeded.

Landon Donovan is the first American to make an impact at the highest level of soccer, and the soccer community is starting to notice. For the first time, American soccer is starting to gain credibility, and more and more teams are starting to look at players. Numerous American born players are getting chances to play in Europe. This wont directly correlate to improved visibility of soccer in America. However, this gives American soccer players the chance to play against the best competition in the world. Sorry, but the MLS is still a cut below the rest of the European leagues. By having American players improve against playing against the best, this can only translate to improved play at the international level, specifically the World Cup.

Soccer will never be big in the US until the US wins the World Cup, or even makes it far. By having Americans play in Europe, this can only improve the national teams chances at the World Cup.

Back to Landon Donovan. If he continues to play at this high level at the highest level of soccer, he will be amazing at the World Cup in South Africa in June. The game experience of playing against quality opponent in pressure packed and hostile situations will be invaluable to the national team. If he comes back to the MLS, he will play against 2nd tier talent, and I feel the level of his game will drop to his opponents. By also playing at a high level, he will continue to give credibility to the abilities of American soccer players.

Bruce Arenas needs to suck it up. He used to be the coach of the American team for two world cups, including the 2006 World Cup debacle. Out of everyone, he should know the workings of the national team at the international level. I believe by allowing Landon to continue to play in England, he will be ultimately be improving the state of US soccer in the long run.

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March 6, 2010

The crazy Pac-10 season and moving forward

Filed under: basketball — Tags: basketball, pac-10 — Jonathan Lee @ 6:32 am

This year’s college basketball season has been the most interesting season in recent memory. I think its the first time since high school that I’ve really lost interest in what’s going on throughout the country. I think there’s been numerous factors contributing to this, but the biggest has to be the unexpected (or even expected) dismal season in the Pac-10. For the first time in 20+ years, a Pac-10 wasn’t ranked in the AP Top 25 poll. In recent polls, a Pac-10 team didnt even get a single vote in the weekly rankings. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I mean, the California Golden Bears won the Pac-10 title for the first time since 1958. When Cal wins the Pac-10 regular season title, you know something is definitely screwed up in sports. This season was definitely an anomaly, so fans in Berkeley shouldn’t be expecting titles in the near future. But what contributed to this anomaly, and can we as Pac-10 fans expect things to turn around in the following seasons?

There were numerous factors contributing to this weird season. I think the biggest factor was the quality of talent that simply left for the NBA. In 2009, 6 Pac-10 players were drafted in the 1st round: #3 Harden (ASU), #9 Hill (Arizona), #10 Derozan (USC), #19 Holliday (UCLA), #21 Collison (UCLA), and #26 Gibson (USC). In 2008, 7 Pac-10 players were drafted in the 1st round, including 3 of the top 5 picks: #3 Mayo (USC), #4 Westbrook (UCLA), #5 Love (UCLA), #10 B. Lopez (Stanford), #11 Bayless (Arizona), #15 R. Lopez (Stanford), and #21 Anderson (Cal). On top of that, an additional 5 players were drafted in the 2nd round.

That’s 13 players from the Pac-10 that were drafted in the 1st round over two consecutive years. This is not to say that teams didnt have talent in the past, but the concentration of talent on teams in back-to-back years is unheard of. With so many players leaving in a year, teams/coaches are forced to field teams with inexperienced players the following years.

Couple this with the coaching carousel going on around the league, and you’ll get even more problems. A quick look at the issues plaguing each traditionally strong team.

At Arizona, Lute Olson took a leave of absence the day before the season opener in 2007, and announced that he would miss the entire season. That entire season, the team had to deal with their new interim coach, Kevin O’Neil, who was also told that he would take over the head coaching job when Olson finally retired. Relationships got soured, Olson said O’Neil would never coach at UA, and O’Neil left. Arizona finally hired Xavier’s coach, Sean Miller, last season to take control of the team.

At Stanford, Bob Bowlsby moronically didnt renew Trent Johnson’s contract, after Trent Johnson led the Cardinal to the Sweet 16 in the 2007-08 season. Trent Johnson left for LSU, and Johnny Dawkins came in from Duke to take over the team. The Lopez twins left for the NBA, and Dawkins was left with a very depleted team. This current season, Dawkins is left with only 7 recruited players on his squad. Despite the shortage of scholarship players, Dawkins has his team playing at a very respectable level.

At UCLA, Ben Howland has to deal with a massive loss of talent. In two seasons, he’s lost Holliday, Collison, Westbrook, and Love to the NBA. He simply didnt have experienced players to play. The most experienced player returning this year, Drew Gordon from Mitty, left in the beginning of the season because of his own issues, so Howland really couldnt field a competitive team.

At USC, their entire athletic program is a fraud. Dont even get me started with their football team. With Tim Floyd coaching, the Trojans brought in OJ Mayo and Derozan, who were able to single-handedly carry the team to some national prominence. Throughout his tenure, Tim Floyd had to deal with recruitment allegations regarding Mayo. As the best player coming out of high school, there was absolutely no reason for Mayo to play at USC. USC had never been even decent at basketball. There had to be some type of recruitment violations. Finally, Floyd stepped down, and USC went out and recruited Kevin O’Neil. However, the coaching transition and lack of players has USC really struggling this season.

Now with regards to Washington and Arizona State, they have flashes of brilliance every couple years. At Washington, they will get lucky every so often with Roy, Robinson, and Brockman, but there wont necessarily be consistency year-to-year. Even with Arizona State, they will bring in a star player every so often, but once they leave for the NBA, they have to wait for the next one to come around. In this current season, Washington and ASU dont have that star player and experienced team to be consistent week in and week out.

The problems with all these teams allowed for California to take advantage of the situation and win the Pac-10. They fired Ben Braun, and brought in a great coach in Mike Montgomery, who was lucky to inherit a great class of Randle, Christopher, Robertson, and Boykin. They are all seniors (as well as the top 4 scorers on the team), and Cal was the only team to field 5 players who had talent and experience. But like I said from the very beginning of the season, Cal wouldnt be able to play on the national level, as witnessed by their back-to-back losses to Syracuse and Ohio State early in the season. Cal this season is a shooting team…they live and die by the three, just like the Golden State Warriors in 2005. You need a dominant big man to win, so if you’re shots arent falling, you have something else to rely on. Cal didnt have that important big man, so when Syracuse and Ohio State were guarding the perimeter and Cal’s shot wasnt falling, Cal had no chance.

Congrats to Cal for capitalizing on the poor performance of the Pac-10 as a whole, and winning. However, the big 4 seniors are gone next year, and although Mike Montgomery is a great recruiter and coach, he’ll run into the same problem that Ben Howland is facing now at UCLA…a shortage of experience talent to replace what they have now.

Looking forward to next season, there is hope for improvement. There will finally be stability amongst all the coaches, and all these coaches are great recruiters. Stanford’s Johnny Dawkins is bringing in the #16 2010 class, including star player Dwight Powell, Cal’s Mike Montgomery is bringing in the #23 class, and Ben Howland is bringing in the #11 class, including star Josh Smith. Sean Miller, Kevin O’Neill, and Herb Sendek are all great coaches as well and will bring in strong classes. Sendek already got the #9 player in the nation, Keala King, to commit to ASU.

One thing that’s exciting is that all teams are “rebuilding” together at the same time. Going forward, I dont think there will be one dominant team, but rather a strong conference top to bottom, in the model of the Big East. One can only hope though that it wont be cannibalistic, where all the teams just beat each other up.

Things will turn back to normal soon. Meaning, we wont see Cal bringing the title back to Berkeley for another 50 more years…