Former U.S. men’s national team star Landon Donovan didn’t stay silent during Portugal’s postgame celebrations on Sunday night in Munich.
Donovan voiced his frustration toward the USMNT stars that will miss the upcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup during Fox’s broadcast of the UEFA Nations League Final. Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson, and Yunus Musah were among several USMNT players left off of Mauricio Pochettino’s 27-player roster in May due to respective reasons.
While Robinson recently underwent ankle surgery and Musah was left off due to a personal issue, Pulisic was given a period of rest due to a lengthy campaign with Serie A club AC Milan. The USMNT’s current losing streak was extended to three matches on Saturday after a 2-1 home friendly defeat to Turkey in Connecticut, adding pressure on the current group ahead of the Gold Cup group stage.
Donovan, who is ranked first (tied with Clint Dempsey at 57) and second in USMNT goals and appearances respectively, certainly hit out at Pulisic’s lack of international involvement while breaking down 40-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo’s impact in Portugal’s victory over Spain.
“This is what it means to represent your country,” Donovan said postgame on Fox. “As an international soccer player, if you don’t want to take it seriously or responsibly, then don’t come in.
“He’s [Ronaldo] 40 years old, he played a long ass season, he was out there grinding and got hurt in the process,” Donovan added. “And I can help but think about our guys on vacation not wanting to play in Gold Cup. It’s pissing me off.”
The 26-year-old Pulisic made 50 appearances for AC Milan this season across all competitions, which was a new career-high for the Pennsylvania native at club level. However, the lack of Pulisic’s presence in the USMNT squad this summer, will be a major loss for the program that is desperately trying to get back on track after their Nations League failure last March.
Tuesday’s home friendly vs. Switzerland will be the final preparatory match for the USMNT before group stage play begins on June 15 against Trinidad & Tobago.
Ha! Of course Pulisic’s daddy has to chime in. LD obviously hit the target- lol. What is up with this generations parents? Between the Reynas, McKennies and Pulisics…embarrassing.
at risk of repeating myself, the PR crisis mode way of handling this scenario is when some key A teamers start saying i’m tired we’re all tired, you take the initiative and give them the summer off as coach. you call the gold cup an experiment and opportunity for fresh faces to make their mark. this gives the players some cover on their decisions, and lowers expectations for the games. the pressure is then on the coach and not the players, landon is not criticizing pulisic, and dad isn’t racing into the fray.
this has turned out this way because we made a public show of calling them then getting turned down, and have a tough draw and friendly schedule, which the fans are going to take out on the players. ironically given recent results i am not sure what the fans thought they deserved, other than a lot of fanboys seem to mirror the NT brass themselves in thinking the same people lost the last two tournaments are how we win the next one, which has basic cognitive dissonance and good sense issues.
1. CP can take time off not a big deal, everyone knows he’s a top 5 USMNT player.
2. LD took an easier path being a star in MLS vs. CP fighting for a spot on huge European clubs, nevermind his own sabbatical.
3. CPs daddy should not be on social media getting into this. What is this AYSO?
Donovan is still the US GOAT. But, yeah I am not sure about this one. It really depends on what’s behind the scenes. Frankly, I didn’t want to see Pulisic. That team configuration and roster has failed us enough. This was one of the most enjoyable stretches of play from the USMNT that I have seen in a long time. In fact, I wouldn’t have been upset if Pochettino just had enough and made a statement by purposely dropping them from this summer.
i am not sure if gary page meant it but he made an interesting point. he said pulisic could have just played 2 games. one way of handling this could have been, you make one big camp call. 30+ guys. include the As. you promise the As they will play 1-2 games then be sent on their merry way for the summer. you then also have Bs in camp. there is no limit for a friendly. the Bs are then the roster for the following gold cup. that has a finite roster limit. for which the As are cut. and if Bs look good enough in the big honking camp, maybe even some friendly minutes.
you’re then not potentially asking for 8 games from tired, bruised, or rehabbing players — or kids who promised their girlfriend vacation — just 1. they are on their way by june 8.
meanwhile the fresh faces we do need to see, have to go H2H with the A guys, and carry the bulk of the summer load.
personally i think this should be an exclusively B event, the friendlies should have been easier in adjustment to that, and we just see what they have.
but there are ways of juggling this. we’ve done something like this other windows. 1 game and off. people took stick for it when we played mexico.
but my first reaction to the initial friendly call sheet, was, this is insane. they’re tired and haven’t been very successful. you give the Bs some winnable friendlies, pick the team smarter than this, and then tell them to show up the As and they might have a job in september. see what comes of that motivation.
Johnny,
“jb – It would be better if US Soccer actually released information about what is going on with American players, rather than issuing the vaguest, most mysterious statements such as the one you referenced.”
Yes it would.
However, I don’t know if this is the case with Milan, but a lot of teams . have privacy rules when it comes to medical matters.
I’m not a lawyer but in light of the importance of medical information in transfer dealings I can see how things might get sticky.
Here in America we are so used to the NFL and how it publishes every bit of detailed medical information humanly possible on its players, though the reason for that has less to do with informing fans than it has to do with the betting line in Las Vegas.
And with all that NFL teams still often manage to hide the true condition
of their players. I don’t bet on the USMNT games so I’m not really worried about it.
to me the issues are (a) sloppy coordination and (b) making announcements without confirmations. the self serving chatter on here is that our people and the clubs and the players all talk. you then have about a half dozen key players begging off or not healthy enough to play. if the chatter y’all say happens — and should happen — then we should know up front this guy is ACL rehab, that guy got his girlfriend pregnant, this guy is exhausted, that guy wants to make a transfer and to be with the new team training camp day 1.
you can tell that’s not happening because we issued a roster then got this response back.
secondarily, if those contacts happen, then the coach/staff can give the players rhetorical cover. the coach at least initially just says we’re gonna try some new people and i am giving some starters the summer off.
doing it this way shows up the players. and then landon and co. pile on. you’ll notice 99% of folks on here are not making my beef about this being a sloppy process followed by a goofy set of B choices. i think we can do better than this with a B team. but by showing a process where pulisic gets called then says no, they dodge accountability.
IV,
Really? No shit.
Forget soccer.
Just try to organize a two week meeting of 23 individuals from two continents when their availability is to subject to cancellation at literally the last second. And all the while you are being closely watched and reported on by someone.
You, not the players. And a reasonable number of replacements have to be lined up for the last minute cancellations.
On SBI we don’t get to see all the behind the scenes bullshit that whoever it is who coordinates these things has to go through
But for you to poo-poo these people as if you, IV, could have easily done a better job from your couch at home is bullshit. They deserve better than that from you.
i am saying IMO if they ever picked up a phone like y’all say we do, you find out CP wants the summer off, before you ever provo or final roster him. maybe he even emailed as much.
this was done either sans confirmation or literally to show the guys up. they called them cold and the answer was no. they should already know that snswer. or they knew the answer was no and wanted, as here, for CP and others to become whipping boys.
as opposed to — as i am doing — judging the coach by whether i think his ultimate roster makes any sense. that’s his job. we have some outs but we also have a great pool we barely tap. given this opportunity i am watching harriel, zimmerman, berhalter, white, LDLT, and sullivan. i don’t think that’s most folks’ idea of how they’d use a B team window. be honest.
last, the sheer amount of ask-aways “could” suggest a bigger problem. several people skipped. only some of those are CWC. for some reason the chatter is CP alone and not whether the core is getting annoyed with the coach.
in short, CP is the whipping boy for the weak call sheet and tepid first result. no one is asking the deeper questions, eg, are there better B/dual national/experiment options than this — or — is there any deeper meaning to the sheer amount of A teamers on a break. the original roster read like this coach had every intention of making this an A team tourney give or take CWC.
IV,
“as opposed to — as i am doing — judging the coach by whether i think his ultimate roster makes any sense. that’s his job. we have some outs but we also have a great pool we barely tap. given this opportunity i am watching harriel, zimmerman, berhalter, white, LDLT, and sullivan. i don’t think that’s most folks’ idea of how they’d use a B team window. be honest.”
So where is all your inside info coming from?
Or are you doing what you always do, whipping it right out of thin air so that you sound like you know what you’re talking about?
In order to judge a coach by his ultimate roster. you have to know what he saw as his ultimate objective and you have to know what obstacles he encountered in trying to assemble this roster.
And you don’t know any of that.
Pochettino has described his objective in general terms, that he needs to get to know the player pool better and maybe exert pressure on the starters.
But that is all he has said and there is possibly a lot more going on that could be affected by this roster that I’m sure everyone would like to know about.
Por ejemplo :
How many of the starting 11 has he already settled on?
Who is in contention to beat them out?
What are his real plans for Gio i.e. is he waiting for him to transfer, have a good first half and then bring him in? Or has he already written him off?
How serious is Jedi’s ongoing tendinitis? Everyone seem s to act like he’ll bounce right back. I’m not so sure plus he just lost Silva.
Does Pochettino have any surprise duals waiting in the wings?
Once the Gold Cup concludes there are about 9-10 months left before those WC rosters need to be submitted. There are two friendlies before the end of 2025, Cupcake in January and then who knows how many friendlies. How is Pochettino going to approach all that?
You can judge Pochettino’s roster all you want but without knowing the answers to at least some of the questions I just asked, then that judgement is just so much speculative horseshit, with the emphasis on the horseshit.
Oh Landon, you were a great player who never took a break… oh wait
Always held LD in the highest regard, but he made the decision to put his WC roster spot at risk with a sabbatical. If I remember right, he was not injured at the time.
Gary,
That’s not how it works.
By the time the GC starts CP will not be game fit anymore.
He will have to start working on getting back up to fitness beforehand. He’s not going into the Gold Cup cold and risk injury. Whether that’s a week or two I don’t know.
And then when the GC is over. Milan’s preseason starts and missing that is a bad idea. Playing at the Gold Cup may not fuck up his time at Milan but there’s a good chance it might because it means essentially he gets a very abbreviated rest break.
And from my POV if they can’t win the Gold Cup without CP then they aren’t worth shit anyway.
How do you expect Diego to become the new CP if CP keeps hanging around? If you don’t give someone else a chance to be the hero then …..
i think there was a lot of 2017 talk about rethinking our approach (in general) and then we hired a Friend of the Fed and didn’t do much actual thinking. and it shows. i think this team is fairly mindless at this point. we just do stuff, including a lot of dumb stuff, to try to win the next game. i think we have a lot of tired and hurt players and are calling them all in. and they’ve gotten the attachments to start saying no, i am tired.
i think part of the problem is the concepts haven’t updated since “landon.” “landon” couldn’t stick in europe when they were biased against us. “landon” played in a MLS that was very liberal about USMNT leave. guys would disappear for weeks before tourneys for camps. no one would say no. and many of the europeans were stuck in small clubs, lower divisions, or on benches.
and so we didn’t have to think about “are the players tired” as much. what we need is a load management concept, and an injury concept. they need to rotate the players in and out of call sheets. not call them every game. and they need to look at summer tradeoffs. maybe a guy for summers gets skipped a couple windows. maybe a guy playing every window skips gold cup.
and hurt/rehab players need to just be off the list. that’s dumb.
and to get at a related point, PLAN. one of my beefs is they don’t seem to plan. if campbell needs a look, but is likely out for CWC, he gets his look in a friendly or NL beforehand, or is first guy on the september list after. if guys won’t be in GC they play NL, eg banks. i get a “one window” excuse. we have a lot of guys where it’s a new excuse every window while i watch this lose.
and you can rotate guys “together” or “individually.” historically it would be like a new regular or two got each window off. which ain’t perfect but the idea is to save their legs so they can be called when really needed. so it was first choice but only rarely all of them in one place. say, qualifiers, the world cup itself, confed cup, or the first gold cup of the cycle.
only with guys like landon did it used to be “every time,” and that was because he was MLS, MLS was overfriendly on callups, and he was superfit and willing. and he’s not even acknowledging the dark side of that. like have you thought about why you took a break, and how missing 2014 happened.
and if a few regulars miss every window on planned rotation, voila, there’s your space to trial some newcomers to try and improve the crap results. it used to be about 3-5 new guys every game back in the day. they’d be the guys off the bench game 1 and maybe an exceptional player starts game 2 of a window. this is how pulisic got his start. 10 minutes here. 30 there. but there was more room for that.
at some point this became a wannabe “club meritocratic” thing where (a) they guess wrong who the stars are before they show up (club reputation, stats) and (b) pour them in concrete into the roster. we need to back off, let NT performance choose who we favor.
Klinsmann has admitted that LD taking a sabbatical was one factor in his decision to leave LD off of the 2014 WC team.
Would Poch do the same with Pulisic? Poch has stressed that he wants only guys who will give everything for the shirt, so if this was purely Pulisic’s decision, it may not sit well with Poch. But I’ve got to believe that Pulisic discussed this with Poch ahead of time and got Poch’s approval to take this summer off.
LD’s sabbatical was from December 2012 to March 2013. LD played in the Gold Cup that summer of 2013, but he did miss some World Cup qualifiers when he was out if I recall, and CP et al obviously don’t have to do that, luckily.
LD opened himself up to the comparison. Having coached my entire life, mental health is paramount, whether to LD or CP or whomever, my opinion. Poch’s handling of this is light years superior to Klinmsan’s high school approach, my opinion. CP needs to be ready to go next summer, not this one, and he’s been in the middle of the USMNT plenty, he can miss time and come back, no problem.
and to Klinsmann, the failed leader of men and tactical midget…duh, of course he can.
Totally agree Pulisic needs to be ready for next year.
Clint is the guy I want to hear from in this issue:
https://www.goal.com/en-sg/lists/usmnt-legend-clint-dempsey-criticizes-former-teammate-landon-donovan-on-2013-sabbatical/blt559b6a3bfb151718#csc4c7c28426da51c3
Jacob Schneider
09 Jun 2025 11:00-08:00
‘Where were you when we were grinding?’ – Clint Dempsey criticizes former USMNT teammate Landon Donovan over 2013 sabbatical
Dempsey questioned Donovan’s absence ahead of the 2014 World Cup, when the forward took a sabbatical one year out from the competition
Clint Dempsey criticized former U.S. men’s national team member Landon Donovan for his choice to take a sabbatical away from the game in 2013. The move, which many at the time questioned, ultimately cost Donovan a spot on the 2014 World Cup roster, ex-manager Jurgen Klinsmann confirmed in 2024.
Donovan was absent for 144 days, and on his podcast The Deuce, Dempsey sounded off on his former teammate.
“The analogy I use is you have the opportunity to go plant the crops, harvest the crops, and then you’re sitting at the table it’s time to eat, and you’re showing up when it’s time to eat,” he said. “It’s kind of like, ‘Where were you when we were grinding in the sun, putting that stuff out there, the away games, your back against the wall?’
“I don’t know what he was dealing with and what he was going through, but to build your teammates’ trust and all that, you’ve got to go through the wars with them, the battles with them. You’ve got to be able to look and say, ‘Hey, they’re not going to flake on you. When your back’s against the wall and you need to win, they’re going to be right there with you.’ So I can’t say what the situation was, but that’s how I looked at that.”
The comments, made last week, echo a recent spotlight on Donovan after he had critcized current USMNT star Christian Pulisic for requesting to skip the Gold Cup due to fatigue.
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On a FOX broadcast Sunday, Donovan aimed a dig at Pulisic on-air while Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal were celebrating their EURO Nations League title.
“This is what it means to represent your country,” Donovan said on air. “If you don’t want to take it seriously as a professional soccer player and someone who gets the opportunity to wear the jersey, then don’t come in.”
He added, “I can’t help but think about our guys on vacation, not wanting to play in the Gold Cup. It’s p*ssing me off.”
Pulisic’s father, Mark, responded to Donovan on social media Sunday, bringing up the American’s 2013 sabbatical as well while telling him to “look in the mirror.”
Dempsey, however, did agree with Donovan on his remarks about Pulisic’s absence. The former striker claiming he “doesn’t understand” why the AC Milan star would need a break due to fatigue, one year out from the World Cup.
“I’m a big fan of Christian. I think what he’s been able to do for both club and country has been amazing,” Dempsey said on the podcast. “And in terms of American players playing abroad, him and Antonee Robinson have been the most consistent and the top players in terms of flying that flag for us.
“In terms of his situation, I can’t say what it is. I don’t know the ins and outs of it. But in terms of my situation, when I played in Europe and came back, there were times where I was tired. I had to get a PRP injection in my adductor. I had to maybe rest for some of the friendly games so that I could be fit to play in the tournaments.”
Dempsey is one of the most decorated players in U.S. history, winning three Gold Cups and helping the Americans finish as a runner-up in the 2009 Confederations Cup to Brazil.
“Whether it was Gold Cup, whether it was Copa [América], whether it was the Confederations Cup, whether it was the World Cup,” he said. “I wasn’t gonna miss competitions. That’s just the kind of guy that I always was. So for me, I don’t understand it because that wasn’t my mentality. I always wanted to play in those games.”
Clint doesn’t understand, that’s his prerogative. Clint came in after the breakthrough guys in 2002, so he doesn’t understand them, either. LD is second in appearances on the USMNT, and that’s AFTER the sabbatical, after Klinsman not selecting him, etc. He took off 4 months after serving his entire life up until that point. I don’t understand what the problem is…oh yes, the coach in 2013 was an immature ego maniac, that is a problem. You remember, the coach who was given all the keys to the car because only he could fix the US problems, remember? The guy whose focus was on the 2018 breakthrough, lol, when we didn’t qualify :-;
beachbum,
I included Clint’s quotes because when LD took his sabbatical and did not say if he was ever coming back it was on Clint, Michael and especially, Jermaine Jones to move on quickly.
Those three along with Fabian, DMB and Howard, were the core of the 2014 team, the one I consider to be the best team we ever fielded in a World Cup.
You’ll notice that Clint talked about the World Cup qualifying campaign.
That matters because I’m convinced that CP was never going to play in the 2025 Gold Cup. I’m pretty sure CP and Pochettino had mapped it out ahead of time that he and most of the Euros would do the NL and skip the Gold Cup which, current hysteria notwithstanding , has been pretty normal SOP for some time going back to Bob.
In other words, if qualifying for the World Cup was based on winning this Gold Cup, I have zero doubt that CP and everyone else who could be there, would be there.
But it’s not and the Turkie and Switzerland games are friendlies. I’ve often said I know of no country that takes friendlies as seriously as the US does.
You’re a long time coach, the B and C teams that played Switzerland and Turkie, those guys have never played a game as a team before. How much practice time do you suppose each one of those starting lineups got as a unit?
And Switzerland and Turkie are not exactly chickenshit teams.
Lets be crystal clear Landycakes is pointing the finger at one and only one player – CP. For all the reasons noted above Donovan should just move on. More an more he’s sounding like a guy desperate to paint his rival in a bad light as he gets passed by and moved down the list of USMNT all-time greats.
Funny how Lane and Donovan complained about mental health for players. He bailed on the national team for his own mental health. He bailed on Beyer Leverkusen. He whined because he lived in San Jose and his wife was down in Los Angeles and now he’s pissed because other players are looking after themselves?
he’s wrong for 4 reasons. 1. we should not have scheduled the turks and swiss for pretournament friendlies with this mess. we continue to overestimate what friendlies this team can handle and to not set up “test matches” where we can execute scheme and succeed and build rapport and confidence.
2. landon didn’t play many full seasons in europe to know what that was like.
3. landon seems to have forgotten how his own career ended.
most importantly, 4. what big picture good does it do to bring the nations league team back and perseverate. that concept already lost copa and NL. at worst you waste another tournament. at best you do ok this tournament and convince yourself of something questionable already.
this needed to be a tactical rethink and bunch of fresh faces. the tactics are the same and the selection is wrong.
I can understand giving Puilisic a rest, but it doesn’t have to be for the whole tournament. And, of course, it seems that Pochettino is okay with Pulisic staying home. Still, we could rest Pulisic until the knockout stage or even the semi-finals, assuming we get that far, which means he plays only 2 games. How hard is that? He could go through training after the group stage and it wouldn’t take him long to get up to speed. And it could help with future club chemistry to have more regulars together. There isn’t all that much time until the World Cup and we haven’t exactly been shining lately.
pulisic has typically played badly when tired.
this is their last break before the world cup.
the whole thing needs a rethink and his participation is really only necessary at the end. think of it like HS or college tryouts where the starters stand around watching while you tryout the new underclassmen against the less impressive varsity.
Gary,
How quickly we forget.
It wasn’t that long ago that Pulisic had his time at Chelsea ruined because he spent a ton of it injured, coming back too soon and getting re-injured and then dropping out of the pecking order. By the time he left he was just damaged goods.
He’s turned his injury prone reputation around a little bit with his two mostly injury free seasons at Milan.
I guess he learned how to take care of himself and his body. Fans should give him the credit of for having learned how to protect act e his body
None of us here, especially Landon, know CP’s body and its limits better than CP.
LD spent his entire career in MLS where he could do whatever he wanted, when ever he wanted. Playing for the Quakes and the Galaxy is not the same as playing at a snake pit like Milan.
And before JK, who much like Pochettino took over an abbreviated cycle from Bob, took over, Landon in order to take care of himself ran out on the team and said he might retire from the game.
That left JK and Clint and the rest to have no choice but to move on.
So they did.
Then LD, much later, came back and got all pissy about it.
He makes a good point about the culture, though the reality is that NL has become DE FACTO, the CONCACAF regional championship, but he’s in no place to bitch about any national team player prioritizing their personal well being over the USMNT.
Milan’s last game was May 24. The semifinals of the Gold Cup is July 2. That means Pulisic could have a month off. Since he is a regular, he probably wouldn’t have to go through most of the pre-season with Milan. Are players in the World Club championship taking time off instead of playing with their teams? No. Why is that more important than 2 games with the national team for one of our internationals?
Yet again we don’t know the full story with Pulisic. It’s easy to say he should be there. If memory serves me right Landon Donovan took a sabbatical during Klinsmanns tenure. Pulisic is a private person.
I am a huge Landon fan but he bailed on national team as well……throwing stones….
It’s funny how so many people are quick to call put LD for having done what he is advocating against. I mean I’m sure you’ve never done that in your life….I mean…throwing stones…
I don’t know if we are throwing stones at LD.
I am quite surprised that he is emphatically calling out current players for taking a break, when he – in my opinion – did the same between the 2010 and 2014 World Cup, for which he was ultimately not selected.
He is in the public eye and a broadcaster. I would like to understand how he views his situation to that of CP and others. I anticipated that he might have been more understanding.
We’re really only talking about 3 guys – Pulisic, Musah and Dest. Everyone else is either injured or unavailable due to CWC. Although Türkiye had Guler and Yildiz, who I think are in the CWC with Real Madrid and Juve. But I guess they only have these two friendlies, and then they can go back to their club.
But I kind of agree with Landon, if your country calls, you show up and play, unless you’re injured.
And of those three, one is coming off an ACL and deemed not ready for the summer camp. Pulisic must be who he is talking about I guess but nothing Landon ever did with a club can compare to what CP has done the last 2 yrs straight with no break because of nations league last summer, and it sounds like CP has been playing through minor injuries for months. The guy has earned a break. And honestly even Musah has gone 2 yrs straight. The ex-players need to get off their high horses a bit, and celebrate the guys that are there. Besides, if a Luna or Tillman or LDLT shows out and pushes Musah, then all the better for the USMNT.
Dest played quite a bit for PSV down the stretch. Those games were tougher than these two friendliest and most of the GC games. Poch could easily have managed his minutes. And no, Dest wasn’t deemed not ready for the summer camp.
I have no idea what’s going on with Pulisic. Maybe he is hurt, but I don’t think that’s been reliably reported.
johnny,
None of us are inside the team so can’t say for sure, but from what I recall Dest did report to USMNT camp, was evaluated, then Poch said something to the effect that “at this time, an individual training program is what is best for the long term.” So despite him getting some minutes for PSV (against relatively weaker competition) the medical staff probably concluded he needed to work on strengthening muscles around the knee and getting rest/more time off to be ready for next year and next summer. Seems pretty reasonable…
jb – It would be better if US Soccer actually released information about what is going on with American players, rather than issuing the vaguest, most mysterious statements such as the one you referenced.
Dest returned to game action with PSV on March 8. He appeared in 7 games for them over two months. Over the last 7 days of the season, he appeared in 3 games, and the last game he started and went 90 minutes. The Dutch league may be weak, outside of the top 2-3 teams, but playing very competitive games in the Dutch league (PSV won the championship on the last day) is probably more taxing physically than friendlies against Turkiye and Switzerland and all of our GC games up to the semifinals. The beauty of this window for the United States is that Poch could have managed Dest’s minutes easily. Play 60 minutes against Turkiye and then sit out the Switzerland game. Play the first and third GC group games, and sit out the second game. He could have played a less intensive schedule than he was playing at the end of the season with PSV.
Maybe he had a re-injury, in which case I agree, sit him out. But then tell us that, instead of saying that individual training is best for him. What does that even mean? Couldn’t he do that with the national team, and then get a run of some sort in these games? I mean, he was well enough a month ago to play 90 minutes for PSV in a title clinching game, but now he can’t play limited minutes against T & T and Haiti?
If he came back from the ACL in September, at the start of the Euro club season, would it make any sense for him to play for two months and then take a break? Would anyone do that, assuming they didn’t have setback or re-injury of some sort?
Johnny,
“jb – It would be better if US Soccer actually released information about what is going on with American players, rather than issuing the vaguest, most mysterious statements such as the one you referenced.”
Yes it would.
However, I don’t know if this is the case with Milan, but a lot of teams . have privacy rules when it comes to medical matters.
I’m not a lawyer but in light of the importance of medical information in transfer dealings I can see how things might get sticky.
Here in America we are so used to the NFL and how it publishes every bit of detailed medical information humanly possible on its players, though the reason for that has less to do with informing fans than it has to do with the betting line in Las Vegas.
And with all that NFL teams still often manage to hide the true condition
of their players. I don’t bet on the USMNT games so I’m not really worried about it.