Watching the US Men’s Nation Team take on El Salvador on Saturday was yet another reminder of the second largest problem facing the US if we ever want to be taken seriously in the world soccer community.  The fact that I just typed “world soccer community” is actually the first, but we’ll leave that discussion for a later day. 

Now, it’s not that I have anything against Landon Donovan personally- I just happen to think he’s an extremely overrated player, and the sooner we all realize this and stop including him in the starting 11, the better.

Forget the inflated marketing campaign that has earned him 5 (yes, 5) US Player of the Year awards.   Forget his epic failures in Europe.  Forget his love affair with Bruce Arena.  Forget that he actually posed for this photo. The bottom line is that I can count on one hand the number of times I have been impressed with a Landon Donovan nation team performance.  I don’t care how many goals he scores in MLS.  Taylor Twellman and Nate Jaqua both score a lot of goals in MLS, but Bob Bradley isn’t beating down their doors for a starting position.  If there is a silver lining in all of this, at least he is no longer captaining the team.  Bradley just needs to go one step further and remove him from the lineup all together.

Thoughts?  Are you all secretly Landon Donovan supporters?