In a post-game interview after last night’s All-Star game, Landon Donovan said “We have had transfer interest and we will have some time to think about it and see where it goes.  There is interest from a number of teams.”

To be explicit, what Donovan said he is going to Europe, and it is not a matter of when (next month) but of who (Everton, Man City, Serie A or somewhere else) and at what price.

Landon Donovan is, simply said, the best American soccer player of all time.  He has speed, ball skills, game vision, and a scoring touch that are unmatched by any US player to date.  For American fans of the game, for followers of MLS, and for those of us in Los Angeles who have been privileged to watch him play for the past seasons, he has provided some truly inspirational moments.  We will miss him.  But it is truly time for him to go.

He simply has nothing left to prove here in the States.  He has done all he can do to promote the game and inspire the next generation of players.  He has provided some memorable moments.  He has played in three World Cups and will probably add a fourth before he hangs up his cleats for good.  In order to improve, and in order for him to show both the rising generation of American players and a skeptical (though increasingly less so) European community what American soccer has to offer the world football community, it is time for him to take this step.

Will Major League Soccer suffer for his loss?  Perhaps a little, in the short-run.  In the long run, for MLS to have credibility with American fans, it cannot exist as a closed market.  American soccer fans are not dim.  They know the best leagues are overseas, and that for MLS to have credibility, and to one day be seen on a par with those leagues, MLS has to be able to produce players that can succeed and star in England, Germany, Italy and Spain.  Every MLS player that succeeds in Europe reflects well on MLS, gives it more legitimacy, and makes it more interesting as a spectator sport.  The millions of dollars a Donovan transfer, and other similar transfers, will generate will enable MLS to recruit, market and develop with greater resources.

In the near-term, this is the best use of MLS – a developer and exporter of North American talent and an importer of famous European players on (but not past) the downslopes of their careers.  The fact that four months ago Theirry Henry and Rafa Marquez were playing for arguably the best team in the world (Barcelona) and are now in MLS while Landon Donovan is going from being the unstoppable player in MLS to a valued asset in Europe is a sign of strength, not weakness.

Will American fans suffer for Donovan’s loss?  No.  We are not “losing” him.  For most American fans, Donovan will be playing on FSC on Saturday mornings rather than FSC on Saturday evenings.

And finally, the American soccer community could simply not be so cruel as to deny Donovan the opportunity  to play every week among the best.  Donovan only has a few years left before his skills and abilities begin to irretrievably slip away.  For all he has done for MLS and soccer in this country, he is owed the opportunity end his career without unanswered questions.  Donovan scored as many goals in South Africa (three) as the entire English team.  He deserves the chance to show the world why that was not a fluke.

As a Galaxy season ticket holder, I know that this Sunday against Chicago may be the last time Donovan leads his team onto the Home Depot Center turf.  I will miss him as much as any athlete I have ever seen play for any of my local teams and I will be sorry to see him go.  It would be sorrier to see him stay here, and wonder about what could have been.

So how good is the US Men’s National Team? Over the past two years, the US team has fully revealed itself in relation to other teams and this is the report card-

• The USMNT is well ensconced in the second tier of international soccer, which is no small feat. Over the past 20 years, the USMNT has moved from international laughing stock to the group just below the tier that includes the best teams of Europe and South America.

• The US team is good enough to ruin anybody’s day, including world powers like Spain and England and, for a half, Brazil. But they are not yet good enough to do that on a consistent basis for an elongated run.

• They are the best team in CONCACAF (yes, you heard that right Mexico) and finished in first place in the World Cup Qualifying in CONCACAF, which is a far more grueling and challenging ordeal than finishing in first place in most of the European World Cup Qualifying groups.

• They are team with big quality in certain places (especially the midfield and in goal) and deficits in others (strikers and the back line). That is a criticism that most teams, including teams in the top tier, must often endure.

• The USMNT clearly has more heart and courage than they do soccer skill. That is not a small triumph. Italy and France have a lot more skill, but without any heart, they became national embarrassments.

There was a time not too long ago when watching the US team was absolutely cringe-worthy. The US could not string together passes in the midfield, release midfielders on a break and what passed for defense was a series of harried clearances to nobody in particular. Occasionally those teams would emerge victorious based on shear tenacity, but nobody would ever confuse those teams with something good.

Our current team still makes some foolish mistake that leads to early, soft goals, but they also have the ability to conjure up moments of beautiful, flowing skill. The two goals against Slovenia (and possibly the third that was unjustly ruled out) were moments of great quality from a team that expects to be able to move the ball forward and score a needed goal.

So what for the future? The current squad has a core of young players who will only get better. Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, Benny Feilhaber, Jose Torres, and Maurice Edu are very far from finished products and all have at least one and probably two World Cups left in them. Charlie Davies, whose absence was sorely missed by this team, will hopefully fully recover. Combined with Tim Howard, Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, who all probably have one more Cup in them at their current skill level, this is a nucleus of a team that will only improve.
I would not be at all surprised to see a completely new backline in 2014, perhaps anchored by Clarence Goodson and Omar Gonzalez. Furthermore, it is easy to forget how long four years is in soccer time. Four years ago, Jozy, Maurice, Benny and many others were not on the radar, and I am sure that there are potential godsends being prepared for this team that are, at the moment, largely unnoticed.

Finally, I am writing this dispatch from Italy right now, which may help me with my perspective on all of this. Do you know which team the Italians hate the most? The Italian team – at least this year. They despise their own team, and its failure, with a NASA-hot fury. That is not a healthy way to lead your life – to hate the thing you love – and US fans should always try to avoid such a decent into the abyss.

Moreover, the Italians expressed an admiration boarding on jealously for the US team. For the Italians, the US team is everything the Italian team is not – passionate, honest, young and with great room for improvement. They see the US team as something to be admired and feared, perhaps not now but sometime soon.

South Africa 2010 may not have ended in triumph, and the game against Ghana was clearly an opportunity for greatness lost. But it was absolutely another step on the road to the USMNT’s ultimate destination, and the glory that will come with that summit.

On Saturday morning, Landon Donovan will board a bus at Goodison Park, the stadium at the top of the photo amid all the working class houses, and travel about a mile to Anfield, the stadium at the bottom of the photo amid all the working class houses.    Escorted by a phalanx of security, Donovan and his teammates will walk into Anfield and then, eventually through he tunnel, onto the field, and into an experience wholly new to Donovan.  No matter what happens for the rest of Landon Donovan’s career, no matter what happens in South Africa, no matter whether he returns to the Galaxy or stays in Europe, the following two hours will be among the most memorable he will ever have.

Of all the great European derbies, there are few that can compare to the Merseyside clash.  The Old Firm game in Scotland may be rooted in religious rivalry and for a half century the Barca-Real battle in Spain stood in for the civil war after the bullets stopped flying.  However, it is the proximity of the Merseyside battle that drives the vitriol.  For these two teams, separated by only a park, a cemetery, and 100 years of hate, this game can often define the value of their whole season. 

Part of what makes this Derby so powerful is the sound.  Both Anfield and Goodison are relatively small, confined stadiums.  The crowd at Anfield is right on top of the action, and the noise reverberates around the stadium like shaken pennies in glass jar.  For a normal Liverpool game against some random opponent, Anfield is one of the loudest stadia in the land.  For the Merseyside game, noise is taken to an entirely new level.  The noise at Anfield has feeling.  You can sense it in your chest.  When Donovan takes a cornerkick, he will be taking it while leaning against a wall of sound.  To the extent he will be able to make out anything specific, the dialog would make a pornographer blush.

Ultimately, it is these types of experiences that will make his loan to Everton so valuable to Donovan.  Playing with great players, against great players in an electrified atmosphere is something that you cannot get in 2010’s MLS.  Maybe one day, but not today.  To the extent that Landon under-performed in the World Cup four years ago, one of the reasons why is that he did not have enough experiences like the Merseyside Derby. 

The games Donovan has played against Mexico are passionate, but really do not compare to a Liverpool/Everton match up.  Ultimately, both Mexico and the US have always known that no matter the result, they were both going to qualify for the World Cup.  Beating Mexico is fun mostly because it is so galling to the Mexicans.  Losing to Mexico is always disappointing, but rarely devastating.  What Donovan will experience on Saturday is of a completely different nature.  The fans on both sides are so emotionally committed to the game that they hold nothing in reserve to cushion the blow should they lose. 

For us west-coasters, we are looking at a 4:30 am kick-off on Saturday.  My advice – set your alarm.  With ESPN2 broadcasting the game in HD, it is time to wall –off the TV room, turn the volume up, and let the action wipe the sleep from your eyes.  You rarely get to see a game like this with an American playing a position other than ‘keeper.  It should not be missed.

As Landon Donovan settles into the Everton, Michael Bradley becomes even more a fixture at the Bundesliga, and Stuart Holden and Ricardo Clark leave the US and take big career risks to fight for a position on European teams, many American fans are bemoaning the fate of the MLS. What if all our stars go to Europe? What if the MLS becomes just a developmental league for European teams?

It may be counter-intuitive, and perhaps a little heretical, but soccer in America, and MLS in particular, can thrive as an exporter of quality domestic talent.

As I have said before, there are plenty of great soccer nations that export all their quality players and yet command a fervent following from their fans. Nearly every great Dutch player plays outside of Holland, and that does not make the Ajax fans walk around bemoaning the state of their league. The majority of the Argentina national team plays in Europe, and the River vs. Boca Super Classico in Buenos Aires makes the Galaxy/Chivas Superclassico look like a garden party. And of course, there is not a single member of the Brazil starting XI who plays for a Brazilian club team (with the possible exception of the newly outcast Robinho), but there are still over 400 teams in the Brazilian Football Confederation.

For the casual US soccer fan, they need to know MLS is not some rinky-dink outfit full of future high-school soccer coaches and European geriatrics. Nothing affirms the quality of our domestic league like watching our players be able to compete in the best leagues of Europe. As Donovan, Bradley, Clint Dempsey, and Tim Howard move from MLS, lock down starting XI positions and square off on a weekly basis against the best talents in the world, casual fans begin to accept the product put out by MLS as worthy of their attention and support.

The more talent we export, or more precisely, the more MLS talent is craved in Europe, the more esteem MLS will garner among US fans. As US players head off to Europe, US soccer fans are affirmed in their decision to follow the teams that can create that type of quality. As the US fans learn, through the experiences of our US players, about the culture and atmosphere of European soccer teams, they will want to replicate that atmosphere here with our domestic league.

Most importantly, the success of soccer in America has far more to do with the success of the US National Team than it does Major League Soccer. Do you want to see full MLS stadiums this summer and fall? If the US team has a decent run in South Africa, it will make a MLS ticket one of the hottest tickets in town. For the US to do well in South Africa, its best player must spend a lot of time in Europe playing against the best the world has to offer. I don’t think anyone seriously argues with that (if you do, I have the US/Honduras game from last month featuring a mostly MLS team on my Tivo to show you). Will Donovan, Clark and Holden be better players this summer after their European experiences? There is little doubt they will be.

Sometime in the coming years, the US will hopefully produce a truly world class outfield player – a player who may start in MLS, but will go on to play an important role for one of the great teams of Europe. The moment when some US player takes off their Kansas City Wizards or Columbus Crew uniform and puts on their Real Madrid or Manchester United kit will be one of the great moments in MLS history – the moment when the MLS will have truly arrived as a great league worthy of the casual sports fans’ attention.

Soccer is a cruel game, and Chivas USA felt that cruelty tonight.  While the Galaxy may have done enough to win the game, Chivas did not deserve to lose it.  On the pitch, the differences between Chivas and the Galaxy were small and on the margins.  Off the pitch, the difference in huge – the Galaxy will spend their week preparing to face Houston on Friday and Chivas will not.  Some thoughts from Section 232:

Landon Donovan was a leader of men.  Throughout his career, Donovan has been a bit of an enigma to many US fans.  While few could ever doubt his skills as a player, there was always this nagging sense about him that he was soft.  He was soft because he could not adjust to Germany (twice).  He was soft because, as a member of the San Jose Earthquakes, he was the most talented player, but was always comfortable to let others take the lead.  He was soft because in 2006 he looked ordinary for the US team when it mattered most.  Over the past year, something has changed about Donovan, and it is all for the better.  His effort, his desire to be in the forefront rather than the background, and his commitment to compete and challenge in every game has been extraordinary.  Every player’s skills will desert them in some games, but commitment and effort are always a matter of choice.   Sunday night, like he has all season, Donovan chose to never stop running, to put himself in positions to receive the ball, and to always try to do something useful with it.  He did not always succeed, but his pass to Magee to create the penalty and his strike from the spot were movements from a man who oozes desire, and the rest of the team took his lead.

Chivas played with real fight, sometimes too much.  Chivas badly wanted this game, and their desire was evident for all to see.  Clearly, they walked into the HDC with a “give no quarter” attitude, and played a physical game.  They wanted to make the Galaxy feel pressured at every moment and were not shy about putting a little extra into each tackle.  Occasionally, Chivas were so intent on playing the man that they neglected to play the ball.  I could not find the stat anywhere, but it seemed like the Galaxy had 60% of the possession, made Chivas chase, and eventually wore down a frustrated Chivas who took their anger out against the referee who seemed to call a decent game to me.    For Chivas to get three yellow cards for dissent said far more about Chivas’ frustration than it did about the refereeing.

Both back lines did really well.  Last week, both back lines spent the games figuring out original ways to look foolish.  Tonight, both lines were tough as nails.  While the Galaxy had some better looks at goal, they were all from the top of the box at best.   Chivas’ Yamith Cuesta battled Edson Buddle all night and never gave him one good look at goal.  At the other end, Omar Gonzalez put his nightmare playoff debut behind him and stood tall all night.  On the couple of occasions that Maicon Santos turned Gonzalez, Omar chugged back and disrupted his shot.  In the end, Chivas had only two shots on goal the entire night.  Chivas has a remarkable 10 corner kicks, but the Galaxy marked well and none of the corners ended up causing GK Donovan Rickets a bit of trouble.

Beckham was in the background, until his moment of brilliance. For the most part, Beckham was mediocre.  His passing was a little forced and lacked some sharpness.  He had the best scoring chance of the game with an open shot 12 yards from goal and sent it straight over the bar.  Then, in the 69^th minute, the Galaxy broke, and Beckham released Donovan with a 40 yard cross-field pass that beautifully evaded the defenders and landed at Donovan’s feet so softly that you could hear the crowd suck in its breath at the sight of it.  Donovan then sent in a neat chip to Magee, and rather than kick the ball at Magee’s feet, Cuesta made strong contact with a different ball a little higher up.  Penalty.  Game.   Whatever Beckham’s faults as a member of the Galaxy (and those faults are well categorized by many commentators, including myself) it is hard to imagine any other player in the MLS making that kind of pass.

The Galaxy/Dynamo game on Friday should be a classic.

With less than a month left in the season, this is promising to be one of the more exciting run-ups the MLS has ever had.  The new playoff format which allows wild card teams (teams that finish outside of the top two of their conference)to qualify based on their overall record rather than conference standings has made the table a complete jumble.  As it stands now, this is the table and the playoff qualifiers:

As it stand now, five teams for the west and three from the east would see post-season action.  If this was the final table, the playoff picture would look like this:

The battle for the Home Depot Center looks especially tasty in the West and Chicago’s trip to Seattle looks like one of the games of the year.

As Robert below points out, as the table now stands, Seattle would play Columbus.  With Sigi Schmidt facing his old team, that would be a series to savor.

Of course, this table will almost certainly not be the final table.  Chivas and New England have a pair of games in hand and the potential to make big strides up the table if they can convert them into wins.  This weekend’s games will have huge playoff implications which will radically affect the table.  This weekend’s lineup includes:

Chicago at Los Angeles

Chivas at DC United

Seattle at Columbus

New England at Colorado

Kansas City at Houston

For Chivas in particular, the run-in is particularly tricky.  Although they have five games to go where as all the other playoff battlers have only three or four, they have to play those five games in 22 days.  They travel to DC and Chicago and play Kansas City (without Bornstein or Kljestan who will be with the US team), San Jose and Houston at home.   Chivas really blew a chance this past weekend to gain three vital points by drawing the lowly Red Bulls at home.

I’ll update this table every week through the end of the season.

One of the major complains that many have against the MLS is that it is a developmental league. No American dreams of playing for the San Jose Earthquakes or the Kansas City Wizards – they imagine themselves playing in Italy, Spain or England. The best MLS players are always eyeing their European opportunities. Their agents are mapping out career strategies of moving from the US to one of the “lesser” European leagues in Holland or Denmark as a transition to a bigger European League. The USMNT has two types of players – those who play in Europe and those who should.

For many US Soccer fans, this reality has made Major League Soccer look like a minor league operation, simply holding players until they get a shot at the big show. Seeing the trickle of past-their-prime players like Freddie Ljungberg, Kasey Keller and (yes) David Beckham make the reverse journey only reinforces the degree to which the MLS is viewed as an unimportant league. While Tony Parker comes to the NBA to compete against the best, his fellow Frenchman Patrick Vieria looks at spending his last year as a professional playing in the MLS as “an experience.”

When you go to a MLS game, you look around the crowd and see lots of people wearing the jerseys of some of the great teams of Europe. What is the soccer fan who is wearing the Arsenal, Barca, Real Madrid, AC Milan or ManU jersey at a MLS game really saying? “I love this sport, and I am willing to come to a MLS game because that is all we have, but please don’t confuse me with someone who thinks this is any good.”

So when will the MLS be talked about in the same breath as the EPL, La Liga, or Serie A? Realistically, the answer is never. The MLS will always be a feeder league for the high fliers of Europe. We should absorb that fact, and root for our MLS team without reservation or an ounce of insecurity.

There are plenty of great soccer nations that export all their great players and yet command a fervent following from their fans. Nearly every great Dutch player plays outside of Holland, and that does not make the Ajax fans walk around bemoaning the state of their league. The majority of the Argentina national team plays in Europe, and the River vs. Boca Super Classico in Buenos Aires makes the Galaxy/Chivas Superclassico look like a garden party. And of course, there is not a single member of the Brazil starting XI who plays for a Brazilian club team, but there are still over 400 teams in the Brazilian Football Confederation.

The US Soccer fan has to adopt this same attitude. The MLS is our league, and its players are our players. When some of them get the opportunity to play in Europe, that does not diminish the status of our league – it enhances it. It proves we are turning out players with the ability to compete among the best. Whether our teams can compete among the best is irrelevant.

Sometime in January, a handful of the best the MLS has to offer – Chad Marshall, Robbie Rogers and (almost certainly) Landon Donovan – will be taking off their cleats and uniforms and be putting on their boots and kits. As a proud MLS fan, I will be looking forward to see how they stack up with their new teams in their new leagues. I will also be looking forward to seeing the new blood the MLS brings in. I will still go to my 12 Galaxy games a year and Tivo the rest. I will still play my Sunday 5 on 5 games in my “vintage” gold and green Galaxy uniform.

The MLS may not be a first tier league, but that does not mean we should be second tier fans.

The United Soccer Leagues has been a doormat to the MLS for too long.  They have allowed MLS to walk all over them.  MLS has taken multiple cities from the USL to put into their league and have not suffered any kind of legal troubles or image issues. 

This has been a coup for MLS.  They have done the deed without having to put forth the effort normally associated with bringing along brand new franchises. 

But, without any formal partnership, who is really at fault? 

The USL has a flawed business model, and the future for its First Division franchises are all in jeopardy.  Anytime a First Division franchise shows promise, its immediate goal becomes how to make MLS.  Even as new franchises come on board with USL, such as the Austin Aztex or others, it is easily apparent that with the right moves, MLS is not too far away. 

History shows that the USL should compete directly against MLS.  In both the history of football and basketball in the U.S., leagues have merged and absorbed each other. 

In football, the American Football League (AFL), consisting of teams such as the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, and Oakland Raiders, merged with teams from the NFL, which consisted of teams such as the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers.  In basketball, teams from the American Basketball Association were absorbed by the NBA after an agreement of merger. 

Perhaps the USL’s future will be to be bought up by MLS to be a ‘minor leagues’ of sort.  But, the USL should consider that MLS is susceptible and it is possible that the USL could be the dominant league at some point in time in the future. 

As the USL sets its course for its future, with foundation at the youth and community levels as its bases, it should be more bold with its professional teams and not take for granted that MLS must be the ‘dominant’ league and the USL only a ‘funnel’ league.

The USL should approach an outsider cable television station like VERSUS to broadcast games on a regularly marketed basis.  It needs to bring its league closer to the American audience so that it can promote its Second Division teams sooner and form a more broad First Division.  A team in Charleston or Rochester is impressive with its own kind of marketing potential.  A league with many teams from cities or areas of 300,000- 500,000 or more people can also provide tons of soccer excitement. 

The recent match between the U.S. and Cuba battling for a spot to the 2010 World Cup was a prime example of why soccer must revise its rule involving red-cards.  Expulsion from the game for a heinous foul is not the problem.  If the foul warrants expulsion, the referee should make the call.  What happens after the player is dismissed from the game is not what U.S. sports fans want to see from professional soccer.

U.S. sports fans expect the player to be fined and suspended for more games.  But, for the game being played at that moment, sports fans want to see another player take the suspended player’s place on the field.  There is too much invested in the game for it to become a laughing affair, as the match last night did.

Soccer purists, of course, will disagree, and they will try to cite the occasions when the team down a player was able to come back and either win or tie the game.  But, this occurs infrequently.

The problem is that the rule is set up to punish not just the player and his/her team, but, also the fans. 

It was big, bad U.S. vs. small, socialist Cuba.  The match-up was an attractive one.  The drama was both surreal and potent.  The outcome was unpredictable. 

The score was 2-1 late in the first half when the referee made the debatable and controversial call.  The remainder of the game was played with 11 players vs. 10 players.  The final score was 6-1.  

As professional soccer develops in the U.S., it must revise the red-card rule to reflect the best interests of sports fans.  U.S. sports fans will not tolerate watching deliberate mismatches.  It is not fair to penalize the fan.  The ultimate competition is an even match among players, eleven on eleven.

As the economy weakens, U.S. professional soccer must consider all peripheral factors that influence how sports fans see the beautiful game.  After having planned a day at the stadium, and having paid for gas, parking, tickets and refreshments, fans would rather see a fair outcome, even when the advantage of the expulsion is in favor of the home team and goes against the opposition.  The same can be said for fans watching on television. 

No one wants to see an expulsion because it changes the complexion of the game.  Whether it is 10 minutes after the start, or with 10 minutes remaining to be played, a red-card ruins the synergy that is created from the beauty of the game.  An expulsion sucks the energy from the fan and diminishes the result. 

In many instances when the red-card comes out, it is a questionable call.  By revising the rule, professional soccer in the U.S. alleviates the possibility of the red-card being a major issue (There can always be controversy surrounding the expulsion of a particular player who may never re-enter the game).  But, from a fan’s perspective, minimally speaking, at least it can always remain eleven players vs. eleven players.  If the player that committed the foul is, upon further review, after completion of the game, deemed to have not made such a severe penalty, then his/her suspension and fine should be reversed.