Landon Donovan writes his own ending

On Thursday evening, the news broke that Landon Donovan would not be on the USA World Cup squad, as the player himself made the relatively short journey from the team camp in Stanford back to LA. From there, the player took the opportunity of a training session on Saturday morning to address the media for the one, and he says only, time about his belief that he deserved to go to Brazil.

On Sunday afternoon, Donovan was back in the starting line up for the LA Galaxy, and after only two minutes he had added to his already MLS record-breaking number of assists, by floating a free kick for Leonardo to score against Philadelphia. And then, after 50 minutes, he ran in at the back post to meet a perfectly teed up low ball from Robbie Keane to score his 135th regular season MLS goal — breaking Jeff Cunningham’s record to become the all-time leading goalscorer in MLS.

Donovan raced away from the scene, celebrating with a cathartic yell. He wasn’t done. In the 81st minute, with the Galaxy leading 3-0 over a hapless Union, Donovan twisted and turned in the box before driving home a second goal. Taking the cue, his coach Bruce Arena immediately subbed him out, allowing Donovan to experience a standing ovation from his home crowd, peppered with pointed chants of “USA! USA!”.

Donovan may have felt he’d done everything possible in the ten days of US team camp, without getting his just reward, but in returning to an environment where he actually controlled his own fate, it was almost inevitable, competitively and poetically, that having been buffeted by events these last few days, Donovan would seize his chance to determine at least one part of his legacy.

If the story of Donovan overshadowed another performance of exquisite movement and a goal from Robbie Keane, as the Galaxy ran out 4-1 winners, or indeed a disastrous second half from Philadelphia, it was always likely to be that way in a weekend that began with one of the more seismic shocks to go through US soccer in recent years, and ended with a reminder of the qualities of the most important player that country has produced to date.

It was also a pointed reminder to Donovan’s erstwhile national team coach that as the player has repeatedly shown, cometh the hour, cometh the man. As of Sunday night, the last tweet on Klinsmann’s timeline was a birthday greeting to DaMarcus Beasley (preventing a Yaya Toure style meltdown?) and a note on his achievement on making his fourth consecutive World Cup, as Donovan may have anticipated doing. It’ll be interesting to see if and how Klinsmann acknowledges Donovan’s fresh landmark. Certainly, if he’d hoped to move on quickly, the USA coach has found that the player is reluctant to relinquish the spotlight. GP

Jermain Defoe is not the highest scoring Englishman in MLS

Before the season started, if you’d been told that a third of the way into the season the leading goalscorer in MLS would be an Englishman, you’d have assumed we were talking about Jermain Defoe having made a flying start to his Toronto FC career. Indeed after his first game had yielded a brace against Seattle, you’d maybe have assumed Defoe was on target for a record total.

But in the subsequent weeks a couple of Defoe’s countrymen have gone on goalscoring streaks that mean that Defoe is not even the highest scoring Englishman — in fact he’s not even the second highest scoring Englishman.

A couple of weeks ago Bradley Wright-Phillips was the man rattling in hat tricks seemingly every other game, and on Saturday he aded to his tally — rolling home a confident penalty for his 10th of a season where he has emerged as the ideal foil for Thierry Henry.

Now it’s Dom Dwyer who’s catching the eye — on Friday night he scored twice, matching a club record for scoring in four consecutive games previously held by Preki and Eddie Johnson. It meant that after this weekend, Dwyer and Wright-Phillips are tied at the top of the goalscoring standings.

For his part Dwyer has provided some much needed timely relief for a team struggling horribly with absent personnel. On Saturday they faced Defoe’s Toronto, where Dwyer’s late second looked to have grabbed the points for Sporting against their ten man opponents, only for the Canadians to pull level in injury time when Bradley Orr nodded an opportunistic header home, after Sporting’s ragged back line failed to push up. Since we’re focussing on English players, it’s worth noting that Orr and the other Toronto scorer Luke Moore (who ran onto a touch from Defoe to level the scores moments after Steven Caldwell’s sending off had reduced his team to ten men) added to a list of entirely English goalscorers on the field, that for once did not include Defoe.

Not that Defoe wasn’t an influence. Toronto’s bunkering style is entirely predicated on springing the ball to him quickly. Meanwhile Sporting had reverted to their regular 4-3-3, from the experimental 3-5-2 that didn’t work out in Chicago. Crudely put, the logic seemed to be keep going forward and hope that the “goals for” column outweighed the inevitable leaks at the back with that depleted defense.

And how depleted is that Sporting back line looking right now? Incredibly, World Cup call-ups, suspensions and injuries had reduced them to their 9th and 10th choice central defensive pairing by the end of the game. A couple of defenders down seems unfortunate. Eight seems like a biblical plague.

It was tough enough for Peter Vermes when he started the game with only left back Seth Sinovic in his regular position. His normal right back, Chance Myers, was tucked inside to partner Kevin Ellis, the recalled loanee at the heart of defense, and Juliao played only his third game, as a right back. Half an hour in, Vermes must have been staring in disbelief as Juliao was sick on the field, only for his evening to get significantly worse as Myers went off moments later with an achilles injury.

It begs the question of whether Sporting will be forced into a trade. Prior to the Myers injury their staffers were insistent it wasn’t their style to do anything other than rely on squad depth, but with Matt Besler in particular now locked into World Cup duty, and with the amount of pressure placed on Benny Feilhaber to screen the defense from midfield (he did this well on Friday), reinforcements may be necessary. Perhaps there are some English defenders available. GP

Higuaín and Chicago defense turn back Crew's clock

Within the nine-month increments that define MLS's seasons, it's difficult for any 66-day spring stretch to capture much relevance, but after Gregg Berhalter's revamped Columbus stoked fans' hopes with a 3-0-0 March, you can forgive Crew supporters for seeing their team's span between wins as a relative eternity. Having also endured a 374-minute spell without an open play goal, Columbus's was casting doubts on whether Berhalter's approach could live up to its promised. Eleven games into the season, seats on the bandwagon were starting to open up.

Any decent revolution needs its leaders to surface in times of doubt, and for Columbus, there's only one hero who could shoulder that burden. Coming off a league Player of the Week honor, Argentine creator Federico Higuaín put in another award-worthy performance, his two long first half through balls giving Columbus its much-needed jolt. Assisting on how of his team goals, the early MVP candidate helped end the Crew's skid, leading his team to a 2-0 win over Chicago.

Higuaín's first helper came in the ninth minute – a ball sent from just inside the Fire half, behind left back Greg Cochrane, that died at the edge of the penalty area. Strong enough to deceive the goalkeeper but soft enough to stay out of the area, Higuaín's perfectly weighted lag allowed Ethan Finlay to side-step Sean Johnson and finish into an empty net – the first time in four games the Crew had scored first.

Columbus's second must have been too similar for Johnson's liking, with an Higuaín ball played behind defender Patrick Ianni leaving the former Sounder defender sprawling as Jairo Arrieta went in alone. One touch toward goal, a second through the keepers' legs, and the Crew's day was done. Twenty-five minutes in, Columbus had secured their slump-busting result.

To the extent that Saturday was actually a turning point, however, may depend on your view of Chicago – specifically, the Fire's rebuilt defense. Viewed as a reclamation project by Frank Yallop this offseason, the defense jettisoned Austin Berry and Jalil Anibaba, regulars under Frank Klopas, to make room for Jhon Kennedy Hurtado and Patrick Ianni. Through 11 games, the rebuild has been a failure, with the Fire managing to regress from 2013's already suspect results (1.91 goal conceded per game; 1.69 last year).

Perhaps Columbus really did summon the spirit of March, but given the Fire's defensive woes, the Crew can't be too assured about their rebound. Two goals are about par for Chicago's course. RF

Bizarre second half goals see Seattle draw with Vancouver

Like a left-handed pull hitter at Yankee Stadium, they've become weapons perfectly suited for a venue's unique features... On the fastest surface in Major League Soccer, the likes of Kekuta Manneh, Darren Mattocks, and, as Seattle's Osvaldo Alonso found out on Saturday, Erik Hurtado, can be Vancouver's Roger Maris, pulling inside fastballs beyond the stadium's short right field porch — only instead of batting balls into seats, Vancouver is pinging passes beyond opposing lines, using the creativity of Pedro Morales and the unforgiving nature of its turf to spin visiting defenders.

Hurtado's goal was the latest example. Turning Alonso twice in the 39th minute, Vancouver's suddenly surging striker showed the advantages of BC Place's surface, finishing a 50-yard, three-pass build up to produce Vancouver's first half equalizer.

It was an extreme example of the danger Vancouver poses at home. Start a bunch of quick, skilled players, set them free on that track, add a couple of players like Matias Laba and Gershon Koffie to devour play in the middle, and playing in Vancouver becomes distinctly different than any experience in the league. Even Seattle, a team that's relatively familiar with the challenges of BC Place, was outshot 24-8 and limited to only two attempts on target, making it all the more remarkable the Sounders had maintained a 1-1 scoreline past the hour mark.

In the 66th minute, however, Stefan Frei brought this team back to earth, albeit in one of the most bizarre ways imaginable. Venturing outside of his penalty area to prevent a goal kick, the Sounders goalkeeper decided to see if he could make it from the right sideline to his far after gifting Gershon Koffie an open net from 35 yards out. He could not, giving the Whitecaps midfielder the goal the crossbar denied him in the first half.

Vancouver, however, would see another moment of farce undermine its chance at full points, though in the 82nd minute, it was official Ismail Elfath, not one of the Whitecaps players, that paved the way for Seattle's equalizer. Calling Vancouver captain Jay DeMerit for contact that's relatively common in aerial duels, Elfath decided to make a momentarily literal interpretation of the rules, holding the Whitecaps' defender to a standard we rarely see enforced. When Gonzalo Pineda equalized from the spot, the Clint Dempsey, DeAndre Yedlin-less Sounders had their point from BC Place.

Even with the draw, Vancouver showed that the talented team that teased under Martin Renne may be threaten higher in the West. Shorthanded, Seattle should be happy with the point it got. RF

World Cups take and World Cups give…

When Jurgen Klinsmann unexpectedly announced his 23 man World Cup squad early, he gave an unexpected bonus to one or two MLS coaches, by sending players deemed surplus to the national team back to MLS sides who’d been facing a headache in their absence.

While the return of a disappointed player might seem a rather compromised bonus, any of those coaches would take that over the situation Peter Vermes, for example, finds himself in — denied of club captain Matt Besler and marquee player Graham Zusi in the midst of what was already an injury crisis.

And Dominic Kinnear, already missing the flair of Oscar Boniek Garcia, could have been forgiven for hoping that Brad Davis, whose presence has tended to be the difference between success and failure for Houston Dynamo, had missed out on a midfield berth in Brazil rather than Landon Donovan.

Ah yes, Donovan. We’ve discussed his omission at length elsewhere, and above, these past few days, and obviously the LA Galaxy man is the most-discussed returnee. His club coach Bruce Arena called his exclusion a “glaring omission” this weekend, but Arena must secretly have been relieved to have the forward resuming his quest for the MLS scoring record in front of a Galaxy defense missing Omar Gonzalez.

While the Galaxy’s second win in a row carried the air of narrative inevitability, they didn’t have it all their own way, especially playing through midfield. In large part this was because Klinsmann’s odd defensive midfielder out, Maurice Edu, was giving a beleaguered Union coach John Hackworth, some much needed support upon his return from the US camp. While the Union were undone by an awful defense, Edu did get them on the board as well, with a late penalty. If they’re to stave off what has the look of an ominous free fall, Edu will be vital.

Meanwhile, Columbus were registering their first win after a bleak run, against Chicago Fire, with the added bonus of being able to bring their captain Michael Parkhurst off the bench for a late cameo and a confidence boosting standing ovation. Parkhurst’s defensive versatility may not have got him to Brazil but it’s vital for the Crew.

Likewise the versatility and nous of Brad Evans, returning for Seattle, will be a welcome boost for Sigi Schmid, as his team try to cope with the changed balance of playing without the attacking threat of Clint Dempsey and the forward runs of DeAndre Yedlin. Evans was a second half substitute for Djimi Traore — ironically, he’d also been playing at the heart of defense for the USA in practice scrimmages at team camp, rather than the right back position he’d played in qualifying, and which Yedlin has occupied for the Sounders.

Another center back rounds out the returnees, and it’s another truly vital one. San Jose’s Mark Watson is possibly one of the few coaches who could legitimately look Peter Vermes in the eye and tell him, “You think you’ve got problems?” as he too has tried to juggle a decimated squad. So from that point of view, the return of Clarence Goodson to anchor his defense is huge. Goodson started on the bench against Houston on Sunday night.

It would be tempting because of the players around him to cast Goodson as the most vital returning player for his team, but as in every other context this past weekend it’s hard to look past the claim of Donovan... GP