re: Landon Donovan was mic'd up last night

I'm not remotely saying the desire wasn't there. I completely understand why he did those things. I've struggled with depression, and there are days where you struggle to get out of bed. I couldn't admit that to my friends much less the world, and I respect the hell out of it. Honestly, it's a big reason why I softened so much on him a year later after thinking about how much his fight to be happy again may have cost him. I'm not saying that it was actually a good justification for cutting him.

I'm saying that I understand why Jurgen would feel a certain way about it, especially with their relationship. A guy like Jurgen who is positive to a fault and couldn't let go of the game so much to the point of playing here under aliases after he retired won't ever understand how someone with the talent of Donovan wouldn't be obsessed with competing constantly. To a lot of athletes, any sort of admission of doubt or weakness is blood in the water. Society sees depression as just being sad and sulking when it's a crippling ailment.

My point is that the chain of events that lead to it makes it understandable as to how Jurgen could justify it. There are a lot of coaches in every sport who would take a mixture of poor club form (for the Galaxy BEFORE camp) and what could be misinterpreted as a lack of commitment to "the goal" and see it as an issue, regardless of previous accomplishments. My point is that the decision was very much weighed down by ego and bullshite, but I think that the idea that there was no justification is false. Jurgen had valid things to point at as to why it was done, but the mixture of ego and Brad Davis makes it a much worse offense. If this were a case study where the facts were laid out with no names, connection, or relationship statuses exposed, it wouldn't be too difficult to agree with. The fact, though, is that we have all of those things available, and we know that he would have been an asset looking back. Even if just for what he's done for the sport, I think Jurgen should have taken him to get everyone on the same page and "pass the torch" with a good World Cup showing.

Looking back after a year, I believe that both of them changing the way things went down a little bit would have helped us dramatically both immediately and moving forward for US Soccer. If both of them swallow their egos a little bit and dance for the other, I think the situation is different. That's not saying Jurgen didn't go nuclear with it, but I just think Donovan as a leader could have made things easier for himself and a unstoppable asset to Jurgen in the way that Michael Bradley is.

I may be wrong, but I just think that both of their egos lead to what happened. That's why I defended what happened then, and that's why I admit that Jurgen had dun goofed big time now.

Landon should really consider that deal to play in India. Have you seen Priya Rai?

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This may sound dramatic but i will never get over him not being at the WC. Every time i think about it ill get sad that i missed a final opportunity to see him at that level.

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It's my single greatest moment of anger as a sports fan, and nothing even comes close. LSU vs Bama in the national championship, the entire Duke front line fouling out against UConn in the 2004 Final 4, Torsten Frings in 2002, Fenerbahce losing the league title on the last day on a fricking errant cross that somehow ended up as a goal, none of those things even compare, unless we talk about the 2006 Duke Lacrosse scandal, which really isn't sports-related (or goes so far beyond sports that it hardly counts).

And looking back 12 months later, it's truly indefensible and gets more so by the minute.

Jurgen's German saviors suck. Of course I don't mean Jones, Fabian Johnson, or even a guy like John Brooks who is madly inconsistent. However, Jones and Johnson were guaranteed starters who put in a lot of good efforts for the USMNT prior to Brazil. But Timothy Chandler and Julian Green are pretty much at their all time lows as players right now.

Donovan led MLS in assists to finish off the 2014 season. And he finished 4th in the beep test, behind only box-to-box midfielders.

Tim Howard has taken a sabbatical from the national team.

So the only thing that people can really say to defend the decision is the possibility of Donovan being a disruptive force. Or Klinsmann being an extremely immature midget of a man who is inconsistent at best and downright dishonest at worst with all of his talking points about loyalty to the national team, current performance, etc.

And I do wonder if Sunil will backtrack if Klinsmann loses the playoff.

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Julian Green are pretty much at their all time lows as players right now.

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He's only 20. Let's not write him off just yet. I am of the contingent that thinks we had to pretty well guarantee him a spot on the plane to get him to commit.]

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Tim Howard has taken a sabbatical from the national team.

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That's a little different than what LD did. Landon didn't play any soccer (competitively) during his. Tim is still playing in the EPL. That difference is important, I think.

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Michael Bradley was a pariah at first once Jurgen came in,

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Yeah, that didn't make much sense either. I swear sometimes Jurgen just does random shite to show people that he's the boss and can do whatever he wants.

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I may be wrong, but I just think that both of their egos lead to what happened. That's why I defended what happened then, and that's why I admit that Jurgen had dun goofed big time now.

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You and I haven't always seen eye to eye on the Donovan issue, but I agree with almost everything you said.

I never really had an issue with Jurgen leaving LD behind. It was a poor choice, but bringing Chandler and not Evans was pretty dumb, too.

What pissed me off the most was that Jurgen didn't have the stones to say why he really left LD off. If he could have said "I think he lacks heart" or "He quit on this team a year ago, and even if he came back - I'm afraid he'll quit again" or "He and I just don't agree on the direction of the team"... but he didn't. He tried to float that bullshite narrative that he "wasn't a forward" and "was just a bit behind the others" while bringing Davis, Green, a maybe injured Johnannsson and Mix (not that Mix is bad - but he didn't play). I'd be willing to bet that he got one look at LD in camp, and decided to cut players before the Azerbaijan game - because he realized he'd have nowhere to hide if Landon played in front of the cameras.

And hearing all of the corporate doublespeak during the ESPN shows made it worse.

He's like the good salesman who kisses enough arse to get promoted to management - and masks his incompetence in buzzspeak, more asskissing and treating his subordinates like shite (playing favorites, double standards, etc.)

I didn't have much respect for Jurgen when he was hired. Whatever he gained during the good run-up in 2013 was lost on that day.

It ain't coming back.

Well, look at who we played in 2015 in the elimination rounds. Jamaica and Cuba. How about 2013? El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama. Honduras and Panama are the two best teams in that group.

We dominated 2013. People looked at it as if it was a completely meaningless accomplishment, but if that's the case, what does that make 2015, when we had one good game, and it came against a Cuban team without their head coach and ravaged by defections.

And the thing about form and fitness is all relative. Donovan wasn't in form or as fit as previous versions of Donovan. So what? 70 percent of Donovan is one of the top 10 players in US history.

The version of Donovan that couldn't train as hard anymore beat damn near the entire team in fitness exercises. And the same Donovan led MLS in assists.

He played better in the second half of the MLS season, that's true. However, his first half wasn't as bad as people say. I don't have the link anymore, but there was an article in one the advanced analytics soccer blogs that showed Donovan was top 5 in MLS in creating chances at the time he was cut from the World Cup squad.

I agree that Donovan could have been more proactive in building a good relationship with Klinsmann, but we all know how Klinsmann felt about the guy in a much more overt way. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA was the exclamation mark on that.

And that argument highlights my single least favorite aspect of Klinsmann. He uses European condescension to make meaningless talking points that he then applies at whim. He wants American players to be in better condition, but our team is often the one that covers the most KM/per person in tournaments. He wants players to know that their spots aren't safe at any point, but then he benches guys for no real reason but showing he's the top dog, while giving countless opportunities to his favorites. And he shite talks guys like Feilhaber, who were absolute studs in 2010 and are given not even 1/100th the shot of Edgar Castillo.

The guy literally said we are not a good soccer country if we have someone like Feilhaber in our pool, when he is one of the most skilled and consistent guys we've had in years at CM. It's the kind of thing that drove us up a wall with Bob completely freezing out Bobby Convey at his peak while giving constant burn to Ricardo Clark and Bornstein. Klinsmann isn't as bad about sticking with guys, but he can be even more capricious with isolating guys from the squad. And then he insults our collective intelligence with bullshite like "He wasn't quite as high a level player as X" as if that means anything.

On top of that, he keeps talking about European standards and the mentality of players. Well let's be honest. On every European national team, star players do whatever the frick they want and coaches know their place. Zidane smokes cigarettes at practice and sits around while other guys who are less proven train harder. Tomas Rosicky gets blackout drunk with prostitutes after an international match and gets a small fine. Players with egos far larger than Donovan and even Klinsmann, are given immunity until they cross the Roy Keane threshold, but that's about it.

Broski, is that you?

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Broski, is that you?

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Damn, I'm all up in your head and didn't mean to be.

Sorry.