Top Stories

Landon Donovan: USMNT ‘got what we deserved’

U.S. Men’s National Team legend Landon Donovan is the latest to sound off on the team’s failure to qualify for the World Cup next summer.

“You can lose games, that’s all part of it. But the lack of urgency to really understand what was at stake was really disheartening. Candidly, it was really hard to watch,” Donovan told the Dan Patrick Show.

The U.S. went out after the disaster scenario that required an American loss combined with Honduras and Panama wins played out and kept them out of Russia.

“It should never come down to having to score one goal in Trinidad to get to the World Cup, although we in our history have had to do that,” Donovan said. “I think we’re past those days where that should happen.

“The reality is we’ve lost two games at home in qualifying — I’m not a statistician, but I don’t know the last time that happened. And we lost a game in Trinidad against a team that had nothing to play for.

“That’s sort of the reality of the situation, and it’s unacceptable in every way and it’s disappointing. We got what we deserved.”

Donovan, like most who follow the USMNT, is aware of the need for changes. He, again like most who follow this team, doesn’t have any specific answers. He wants to avoid a situation like this ever happening again and calls for U.S. Soccer to take a look inward as they sit in this low point.

“So are we worse off? Yeah, probably,” he said. “Sometimes in situations like this — not today, but in the long run — maybe this is the best thing that can happen so we can all take a step back and re-evaluate and re-assess and make sure this never happens again.”

Comments

  1. Definitely agree with Landon!! there was no sense of urgency for the U. S. Team, like there was with Honduras and Panama who were actually playing for the 4th spot which would keep them alive, having conceded the U. S. the match against T N T. So playing at home, you figure they both would win in that situation, and the U. S. knew they would have to get a
    least a tie to take the 3rd spot or be related to 5th. They would have to go all out until they
    had a 2 goal lead, and then could simply protect the lead down to a tie if necessary, and that
    would be that. However, they played like they had the 2 goal lead already and showed no
    all-out effort or emotion. VERY SAD!!!!!!

    Reply
  2. Arena was coach for less than a year, right? the damage in the 5 years before led to all of this! geez. Arena failed in bailing out the DUMPSTER FIRE, yes, but that ahole Klinsmann left us in it.

    Reply
    • Reply to beachbum
      -Jk deserves a big portion of blame to be sure, but Arena was outcoached in three of the last four matches, and honestly, it looked more like the Panama manager outcoached himself rather than Arena had the answers. Arena had these guys for the month of January and July, and 18 matches total he had plenty of time to be held accountable. He had the exact same problems that JK had, talked out of both sides of his mouth (Cameron isn’t fit enough to play because he’d played one match since Sept., starting Besler and Altidore who had done the same), playing guys in positions they had no chance of success (Bradley in the midfield with no help) and complete arrogance when questioned about failure of his squad.

      Reply
    • Arena’s name is just like that of the Stock Market, “Past performance is not indicative of future results”
      Yes, Gulati should have fired JK after the 4th place showing in the Gold Cup.
      But let’s not pretend we were trying to qualify in Europe or South America. In addition to the 8 qualifiers he had a camp, a few friendlies, and the Gold Cup… he had plenty of face time and enough games that it should have never ever had to come down to needing 2 results in the final round.
      Even if he didn’t want to turn over some spots to the next generation until after we qualified, he had control over who to call, who to play, how to line em up, and he had more than enough talent to at least qualify.
      2 blow out wins (and frankly Panama made it easy as pie) and we didn’t look like a complete team except one game.
      The press annointed him a savior after his first 2 games and built a ridiculous false sense of security because of the Gold Cup vs weak weak competition…
      He brought back a lost locker room.. but brought them up to what?? Striving for mediocrity while “his” guys started “feeling” so much better? In making that happen did he just believe his own press and forget that concept of urgency or accountability?
      I mean even vs TnT here in The States they had THREE chances they should have put away before we even scored.. we got outplayed a good part of that game… and if it wasnt for Pulisic we may have finished dead last in the hex…
      He had plenty of time and he failed miserably..
      He failed to recognize who this team really was, failed to call in the right players, failed in his line-up decisions, failed even more on his substitution decisions, and worst of all there was ZERO urgency..
      8 games = 12 points says it all

      Reply
  3. USSF ruined everything: no proper preparation for USNT, avoiding Copa America many in many cycles ago, rewarding failures (Klinsmann renew contract), failing going to Olympics, & USNT is kinda dull team.

    Why former Players are not part USSF’s admin? Donovan has more “soccer mindset” than scum of Gulati.

    Reply
  4. Bedoya would have been useful to replace the useless Nagbe after half time. That would have given us someone with a high work rate to get down the line, put up crosses, and track back. This is what Bedoya was known for at Nantes.

    Nagbe, who sometimes can dribble and makes things happen, doesn’t have any defensive qualities and left a big gap on his side of the field. He’s only useful if we play with a 3 forward system and he’s one of the wingers.

    It’s all about balance on the field, and making the right substitutions to cover the team if some area is failing. Arena failed big time in that aspect.

    We do have players in our pool to qualify but bad decision-making and over reliance of MLS veterans (politically motivated or not) throughout this campaign produced this result.

    Reply
  5. I’ve been saying for months we haven’t looked right. And with the exception of one game we haven’t played like a complete team since the Copa Centenario. An outlier 6-0 drubbing and a hard fought draw in Mexico. In that additional friendly + 6 Gold Cup games with our A- to B+ squad vs vastly inferior C- squads we never looked complete, never looked like a group with a killer instinct, and never got our tactics right. Even the 4-0 home win vs Panama.. were we really that good? Or did it have more to do with our opponent? Panama trots out a formation they’ve never played & didn’t account for Pulisic- who was responsible for what.. 80-85% of our goals scored or assisted the entire hex???

    It’s so clear (and infuriating) that that idiot Arena had ZERO self awareness, AND looks like he believed his own press & hype WAY too much… had his mind made up from the beginning who’d play and didn’t plan his subs right except the ONE time Deuce came off the bench.

    Despite all the truths about needing an overhaul, he mucked up a layup so bad he should be castrated…
    A few examples looking back & I’m sure I missed some..
    – No urgency, no passion- No Jones.
    – Brings Deuce off the bench once and decides to never start him again.
    – In every game we had NO connection between our lines, huge amounts of space between them losing every second ball, yet still trotted out some antiquated version of his MLS style 442.. only to be saved by Pulisic at home, and setting him up to fail as the right mid in the 442 trying to replicate Donovan.
    – Sending home Rowe & Dwyer in the Gold Cup.
    – Stuck on “I don’t know what to do” with pre-determined call ups…never calling Williams, Dwyer- fill in the blank..
    -Leaving himself zero midfield options on the bench we were set up to score early or have ZERO answers how to adjust
    -Stranding Bradley time and again… a slow guy to cover 40 yard gaps and NEVER adjusting. I mean his desperation moves the last game- bring in Deuce essentially playing a 424, and Benny-who hasn’t played a Nat game that mattered in years.
    – Zusi looking like a parking cone getting run by.
    – Leaving out Cam and Fabian and Jones.
    How many others am I missing…

    Set up to fail while looking like fools…
    Led by the biggest fool of em all..
    8 games=12 points says it all

    Reply
  6. Day before the match instead of being focused on the match Arena is whining about how European teams have it so easy. Arena put his players in positions to fail, and clearly had no plan for what to do if we were down. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

    Reply
  7. I remember the media storm JK created when he said the US is not going to win the world cup! There’s ambition and there’s reality. There no point to ambition without reality check and honest assessment.

    Reply
  8. All said, this team has not shown an ability to fight let alone create its way out of trouble. The difference in class between us and CR and Mex was there for all to see. Then Bruce with his inflexible tactics and poor player selection made everything worse. Against Pan we got lucky with the brilliance of a 19 yr old. But that’s all we got now. The rest of Concacaf are rising and qualifying is not a given anymore. And that’s probably the best thing as we need to look into the mirror and learn some humility to go forward. Hopefully, we will learn to not take anything for granted from here on out. And that goes for all the fans as well.

    Reply
  9. what Donovan wanted to say: “Micahel we did all this for you and 2018 and you just jog around like a spoiled entitled suburban kid? Never fake calling you world class again. sorry Jermaine for making fun of your accent. Now I know why you were a champions League player”.

    Reply
  10. Been thinking the same as LD and others have said. In a way I’m glad this happened. Lays bare US soccer has a long way to go, some things must be changed. For me it boils down to pay-for-play more broadly, and the lost generation roughly 22 – 27 year olds. Maybe US soccer can start funneling more funds towards reversing the pay for play situation.

    Further had we qualified for Russia, seems highly likely the US would’ve been hard pressed to even advance out of the group stage. So really it’s just missing out on 3-4 games over 2 weeks. I’ll try to enjoy the WC by rooting for the likes of Iceland and teams my friends support.

    Reply
  11. Remember all the talk about how well prepared the coaches had the team for the Panama game? Best job ever, etc. So what happened here? Did Arena just tell them, Go at it boys? A lot of blame to go around, and I think it falls equally on most of the players and the coach who made bad choices and didn’t have a good game plan. Not only did the US lack any sense of urgency, what really bothered me is I would see players lose the ball or make a turnover and then just stand there and throw up their hands. Rarely, until late on, did you see them then run back on defense to help out or try to win the ball back. Not only did we miss JJ, but many may be down on Zardes, but he was always ready to track back and help on defense and he has a fantastic motor. This is one reason why Nagbe is not nearly as valuable as many people think. He’s not a two way player and not enough of our players have been. And while I’m on a rant, remember how Klinsmann used to always insist on the importance of fitness and some players (Besler, e.g.) didn’t take him seriously? Why is it that in the last 4 games, in the second game of each cycle the opponent had a lot more energy than we had?

    Reply
  12. Spot on by LD. It was difficult to watch 5 mins in and it didn’t get any easier. That would have been true if the US won by 5 with that level of effort.

    Reply
  13. Here’s the problem. Argentina, absolutely having to win to get to the Cup, fall behind almost instantly. Messi scores an equalizer. He does not celebrate. He’s got a face on, he runs into the goal, picks the ball out of the net, and runs to the center circle to get started to get the next goal.

    USA having perhaps to win to get to the world cup, falls behind very early. Nobody takes it very seriously.

    I bet things would have been different if we’d had someone like Jermaine Jones (as he was in the last cycle) in Bradley’s spot.

    Reply
    • Its a fair point but Michael has done his share in qualifying… He played very well on Friday and snared us a point in Azteca with a moment of brilliance…

      The fact is, Bruce should have been screaming his guts out when we coneceded the first. I like Arena but his willingness to accept draws on the road to lesser teams killed us… We got the 2 points in Panama and Honduras… but it left the margin too thin…

      Reply

Leave a Comment