As he stages another comeback from retirement, one of US soccer’s finest ever players reflects on money, fame and why he chose America over Europe
As the lights swirled in the darkness of an aging San Diego arena three weekend ago, stepped through the “O” of a giant inflatable “Sockers” sign. On the other side of the fog machines, the spotlight found him: it was Landon Donovan, now 37 years of age, and still American men soccer’s only true household name.
Even before he stepped out of retirement here for the third time (following a brief reunion in 2016 with the LA Galaxy and a half-season at Mexico’s Club Leon in 2018), the fact that Donovan would join the Sockers – for a reported $250,000 for the remaining half of the Major Arena Soccer League season – seemed odd. The San Diego Sockers? The indoor soccer team? For a player with 157 international caps, this quirky subgenre of the sport, with its $2 Bud Light nights, its frenetic play and its games in places like Turlock, California and Hidalgo, Texas, seems like unfamiliar territory. But in the context of Donovan’s eclectic career it is of a piece with all his other moves that American soccer fans have debated for the past 20 years.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CepEex
