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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2014
PAGE 3B
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"This is certainly one of the toughest decisions — the toughest decision in my coaching career — to tell a player like him with everything he's done and what he represents, to tell him that you're not part of those 23 right now. I just see some other players slightly ahead of him."
THE MORNING BREW
— Jurgen Klimmann on leaving Donovan out of the 2014 World Cup US Soccer
FACT OF THE DAY
Landon Donovan holds the Major League Soccer scoring record with 137 goals.
MLS Soccer
TRIVIA OF THE DAY
Q: Donovan is one of three male American players to score in more than one World Cup. Who are the other two?
A: Clint Dempsey and Brian McBride
Landon Donovan retires from soccer with incredible but incomplete career
FIFA
United States soccer legend Landon Donovan played and won his last career game in
Sunday's Major League Soccer Cup final with the Los Angeles Galaxy. The championship was Donovan's sixth MLS Cup and the Galaxy's fifth in franchise history, making the team the first to win five Major League Soccer (MLS) Cups.
Donovan is responsible for some of the most iconic moments in U.S. soccer. His goal against Algeria in stoppage time of the United States' final group stage game in the 2010 World Cup was possibly one of the greatest moments in American sports. He retired as the highest scorer to ever wear a U.S. national team shirt and with the highest scoring and assist titles in the MLS.
Also, many credit Donovan for the growing popularity and notoriety of MLS, although tangible evidence of that is difficult to point out, to say the least.
As with anything concerning Don-
ovan's career, things are a lot more complicated than they seem.
While Donovan has been the face of MLS since 2003, when he led the San Jose Earthquakes to an MLS Cup win, he was on the verge of joining a top club in Europe before opting to stay in southern California.
Donovan signed his first professional contract with German club Bayer Leverkusen. However, he spent most of his time with Leverkusen back in the U.S. training with the United States under-17 team. A common theme across his career was the reluctance to play in unfamiliar, uncomfortable settings. He would return to Germany in 2009
with FC Bayern Munich only to make six appearances under then-coach and current U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
Between seasons with the Galaxy (the MLS plays its seasons opposite from other leagues), Donovan played for Everton FC in the English Premier League. He had success with Everton, scoring only two goals but being named the league's Player of the Month in January 2010. In the 2011 MLS off-season, Donovan returned to Everton and assisted seven goals.
Everton wanted to sign Donovan to a permanent deal in 2011, but the Galaxy's stingy valuation of $15 million kept Everton or any other Premier League team from signing him. Any possibility of Donovan testing himself at the highest level ended in August 2013, when he signed a long-term deal with the Galaxy.
His petty, passive-aggressive reaction toward being left off the 2014 World Cup roster by Klinsmann, who may have held a grudge from the Bayern Munich grade, proved a disappointing
end to Donovan's national team career
"I think I was one of the better players in camp." Donovan said via goal. com. "If I had gone in and didn't think I deserved it then I can live with that, but that is not the case here."
Along the way, Donovan made some controversial career decisions. First, he decided to take a few months off from soccer and miss the first month of the 2013 MLS season. Second, he made the choice to retire at 32 in a year that he led MLS with 19 assists. Donovan could easily have played another year or two, but the length of his career is, and always should be, completely up to him.
What isn't up to Donovan is how people see his career. For the national team's leading scorer to never have played a full season in one of the world's top leagues shows that any comparison with the rest of the country's Premier League stars, like Clint Dempsey or Brian McBride, is apples to oranges.
Roster overhaul for next Sporting KC season underway
Edited by Drew Parks
CHRISTIAN HARDY
@HardyNFL
In the weeks after Sporting Kansas City was eliminated from 2014 MLS Cup contention with a 2-1 loss to the New York Red Bulls in the opening round of the playoffs, manager Peter Vermes made it clear that changes to the squad were imminent.
Those changes came into full swing this week after Sporting KC surrendered its MLS crown to the Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday.
"We need players on all lines," Vermes said via the team's official website. "We need players on the defensive line, we need players in the midfield and we need players up top. Until any of these deals get secured, we're going to keep working towards improving the roster."
On Monday during a 12-hour trade window, the team sent center defender Aurelien Collin to Orlando City SC — one of the two MLS expansion teams — for 26-year-old defender Jailal Anibaba, a third-round pick in January's MLS SuperDraft, and cash considerations. Collin was hoping for a new contract with the club after his current deal was set to expire in 2014, but the sides couldn't come to an agreement.
Ike Opara — who Vermes expects to be ready for the start of the 2015 season — is a shoe-in for Collin's role on the back-line, while Anibaba will play a sporadic role as a reserve.
"It wasn't easy," Vermes said. "But I think all of you know that in the (salary) cap world of all sports, there are always going to be challenges trying
to keep your team together. In this situation, it became a cap casualty."
"There's a lot of time to build a team and try to put something together, and we're going to work towards that."
PETER VERMES Manager
The Collin trade was followed by another trade, which moved forward C.J. Sapong to the Philadelphia Union for a first-round pick in the SuperDraft. In the final deal of the 12-hour window, the team acquired Bernardo Anor from the Columbus Crew to shore up the midfield.
Olum mutually agreed to terminate the defender's contract in late November, and the team declined contract options on Toni Dovale, Andy Gruenebaum, Michael Kafari, Eric Kronberg, Victor Muñoz, and Sal Zizzo. Earlier this week, forward Soony Saad signed with the Thailand Premier League side BEC Tero Sasana FC.
Those trades came after Sporting KC and Lawrence
Añor is expected to serve as a direct replacement to Sal
Although the moves weren't easy, each of them made sense. While Sapong was drafted by the club in 2011, he peaked with the team in 2012 with nine goals in 31 MLS appearances. But with the emergence of Dom Dwyer in 2014, Sapong started only seven times in 2014 and notched just two goals, and was forced to play outside of his natural position.
Zizzo, who was selected by New York FC in the MLS Expansion Draft on Wednesday. The 26-year-old Venezuelan notched six goals with Columbus in 2014, which would have been good enough for second on the current Sporting KC roster.
Gruenebaum and Kronberg, both goalkeepers, struggled down the stretch. They allowed two goals in each of the team's final four games, all of which were losses. Homegrown Jon Kempin is the only goalkeeper remaining on the squad. The man between the pipes is the glaring gap in the Sporting KC squad right now, but it's expected to be addressed in the coming months.
"We have some good targets, and we're moving closer and closer to securing that position," Vermes said. "We want
to make sure it's somebody that's going to be able to play at the style and level we want to play at."
All in all, the team has sent out $966,000 and brought in only Anor, who is slated for $48,000. While the team is still working on deals for Kevin Ellis and Jacob Peterson, it's clear that Vermes will have plenty of room to work with to bring in players and complete his squad over the next couple of months.
"We've still got some work to do," Vermes said. "The things that happened today are the things we worked towards ... There's a lot of time to build a team and try to put something together, and we're going to work towards that."
Edited by Jordan Fox
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