Thursday, May 24, 2012

Grant Wahl: Donovan candidly discusses future, retirement in wide-ranging Q&A


It hit me for the first time listening to Landon Donovan on Wednesday: the U.S.'s all-time leading scorer may be closer to the end of his soccer career than any of us thought. Donovan turned 30 in March, and he's back with the national team here for the first time in eight months ahead of the U.S.'s five games between May 26 and June 12. But Donovan is also a player who freely says that after playing in three World Cups, winning four MLS Cup titles and amassing 138 national team caps, his hunger isn't the same anymore. On Wednesday he spoke of wanting to play two more years with club and country "and then sort of reevaluate it from there," as he put it. Donovan doesn't give a lot of interviews these days -- and almost never a one-on-one -- but he did sit down with a group of four U.S. journalists for 30 minutes on Wednesday ahead of Saturday's friendly against Scotland in Jacksonville (8 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network, Galavisión). Donovan was thoughtful and candid, too. Here are several nuggets from the interview, edited for length and clarity:



No comments: