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My Fox Soccer debut

Landon Donovan Everton 3 (ISIphotos.com)

As most of you know by now, I have made the move to join FoxSoccer.com as a columnist/writer. My debut column appeared today, and it is on Landon Donovan's move to secure his loan deal to Everton.

There seems to be much being made about Donovan's decision to sign a new four-year deal with MLS this off-season when he just had two years left on his MLS contract, but what some are flat failing to realize is that without that new contract there is no loan to Everton. MLS and the Los Angeles Galaxy were under no obligation to let Donovan go on loan this winter, and used that as leverage in their efforts to sign him. Donovan wanted badly to play in Europe this winter and made it happen. Now American soccer fans are being treated to the rewards of that decision, and it could wind up making the difference in Donovan securing a transfer move this summer.

Give my column a read and feel free to share your thoughts on it below.

Comments

  1. Ahh yes Ives, we’re all raging idiots for criticizing Landon’s contract extension. So Landon gives up two years of playing in MLS so he can have three months playing in Europe? Menawhile, his contract has no provision for a dollar figure that would make his loan deal permanent?(at least not reported by this or any other site) No, I think Landon’s mistake will be clear to everyone when he’s back in America playing against a bunch of C-squad guys like Jimmy Conrad and Frankie Heyduk for the next three seasons cause’ MLS has him by the you know what. If MLS would not loan him out this year, better to have waited the 1.5 years and then gone on a free transfer to a place of his choosing.

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  2. Great debut, but…….looks like one of the many FS trolls followed him on to SBI…..Fox has IMO the most uneducated comment board on the planet

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  3. Great first article on Fox Ives… It was little weird seeing ur name on there instead of espn but congrats!!! Keep up the great work!!!

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  4. Congrats Ives.

    It’s fun to watch Donovan at Everton as he may be in the form of his life right now. I just wish there was some way Everton could sign him on a permanent basis although Moyes doesn’t seem too hopeful of that. It’s nice to see what Landon can do when he is surrounded by quality and doesn’t have all of the pressure on him. If you remember he was playing just as well with the National Team when Dempsey and Davies to name a few were playing well and taking pressure off of him. I fear without a healthy and relatively in form Dempsey and Davies we may see a different Donovan in South Africa.

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  5. good article. right on the mark in my opinion. some might say it’s too early to say some of it but the reality is after playing that well against the premier league leaders a whole set of potential doubts are now gone.

    You have to think he turned the heads of capello and England as well. Nothing like sending a shot across the bow.

    His challenge on Cole was legit and a non incident really but a few minutes before that he gave a nice wake up foul on him.. in that moment I thought.. Landon is really ready.. He gets it now he’s woken up.

    btw the article and the first few comments show why adding Ives to that site was shrewd. there are clowns commenting here but no doubt the whole thing has been upgraded

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  6. wow-FSC is a little too difficult to post on and the people on there are idiots. I think the same people on FSC are also posting on SI’s soccer website. Good article Ives, I agree with you completely. Ill obviously read all of your FSC columns but SBI is where it is at.

    GO UNION!

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  7. Totally agree with Hiney Hell, we need to start spoting dual citizens and we need to do it now, we are losing a great deal of talent just because we dont do a good scouting job, congrats Ives I loved the column, keep it up!!!…

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  8. Ives, Congrats on the Fox Soccer move. Will look for you there. I had gravitated away from it since becoming familiar with your blog. All the best. Nice article. Might take some ribbing for your comment that LD may be their best player right now (I know, you didn’t say that exactly, but the gist put him pretty high compared to the rest of the team. I am not even arguing for or against that, just sayin). Btw, your arabic lang. link seems broken part way through. Found other highlights on footy tube.)

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  9. Ives looks like a made man now! mafia style.

    Ives- If you were a Gangster character from a movie or TV series, or even real life, who would you be?

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  10. Doctors in England report that not only did Landon break Cole’s ankle, his nickname was also stamped onto Cole. Get well soon, Ashleycakes!

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  11. I still don’t follow Ives’ logic. Was their some commitment from LAG to loan out Donovan, as an inducement to sign a longer-term deal? Is their some unwritten agreement that the team will ship him out temporarily each year as they’re doing with Beckham? Or, is he arguing that LAG were more likely to agree to a loan as a way to market Donovan once they knew they had a stronger position to sell his services permanently? If it’s the latter, I disagree because they no longer feel any urgency to shop Donovan while they can still get something in return.

    Remember, this is the team that let Beckham go to Milan on a loan and nearly lost him. I could be wrong about this, but I’m not convinced that the loan only happened because Donovan agreed to a new deal.

    (SBI-Fischy my man, I’m not sure what it is you need to be “convinced” about, nor do I get how it’s unclear for you to understand the premise (then again you do a good job of confusing the discussion, so hopefully this clarification helps). LA wasn’t letting Donovan go on loan ANYWHERE unless he committed to a new contract. If LA was going to let Donovan go on loan, it wanted him locked up to a full-term deal that would mean the highest possible transfer if the loan resulted in offers coming. LA puts itself into a much better bargaining position with interested clubs when Donovan is just beginning a four-year deal rather than about to finish out the next to last year of his deal. The former means a much larger transfer fee than the latter. Also, it isn’t as if the chance to go on loan was the only benefit of the new deal for Donovan. He scored himself a $9 million deal.

    As for the “Why wouldn’t they let Donovan go on loan if they let Beckham go” notion. Beckham’s situation is precisely why they wanted to lock Donovan up to a longer term deal, because allowing Donovan to shop himself on loan when his contract wasn’t long wouldn’t have been wise at all.)

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  12. That penalty kick effort from Saha was pretty lackluster. Perhaps Moyes will let Donovan take them? Look forward to seeing his knuckle-kissing ritual in the Premier League.

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  13. At last! Proof positive that not only Americans can get a miserable education and be unable to write a decent English language sentence!

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