Landon Donovan Retires a Champion as MLS Must Begin New Chapter Without Its Face

Landon Donovan is taking his ball, and his trophy, and going home. Forever.

In the 111th minute of a sloppy, grind-it-out MLS Cup final, MLS MVP Robbie Keane slotted home the cup-winning goal for the LA Galaxy, who defeated the New England Revolution 2-1 in extra time, earning the Los Angeles franchise its record fifth league title.

A jubilant home crowd unfurled its banners and tributes, celebrating another title with the class franchise in MLS, with the class player of a generation.

"Party at Donovan's," one banner read. I have a feeling the Galaxy will bring the cups.

Keane's extra-time goal did more than just win another cup for the Galaxy and send Donovan off into the sunset a six-time champion. The goal—and the win, the cup and all the celebration that comes with winning another title—signified the end of an MLS era.

"This is incredible. When you look around and you see this it's amazing," Donovan told Monica Gonzalez of ESPN. "There is lots of excitement around this league. I'm glad to have been a part of it. This is just the end of the playing part. I'll still be around."The timing seems more than coincidental that MLS will begin its 20th season—the first without Donovan in a decade and a half—by rebranding itself with a new logo, by expanding into Orlando and New York City, with more expansion plans two years down the line, and by signing a new television deal. The league hopes the TV deal will bring a renewed interest in American professional soccer to those who have been waiting two decades for MLS to become more than a stepping-stone league for young American talent and a retirement league for aging Europeans.

For anyone who has taken the time to watch the development of play in MLS over the last 19 years, it's probably a bit of an unfair characterization to still think of it as a retirement and/or developmental league. There is a good class of soccer being played in MLS—perhaps the 2014 MLS Cup final notwithstanding—and a lot of that was thanks to Donovan.

Speaking to ESPN at halftime of the MLS Cup, Commissioner Don Garber talked about Donovan's lasting legacy with the league.

"When you think about where soccer in America is today, when they write that book, the chapter on the rise of our country as a soccer nation was driven by Landon coming into our league in 2001—that decision to make us a league of choice," he said.

A league of choice is Garber's go-to phrase for trying to grow his brand of soccer around the world, first keeping homegrown talent within MLS while also trying to attract international stars that help the league gain notoriety overseas and abroad.

When it became en vogue for players to leave the United States to make a name for themselves in Europe, Donovan decided to return to MLS and stay. When his career could have greatly benefited from taking an extended stay in Europe after one of a few successful loan spells, he continued to make MLS that league of choice. Eventually, others followed him, as Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley and Jermaine Jones have come back to the United States to play professionally.Without David Beckham, there would have been no Thierry Henry, no Robbie Keane, no David Villa or Frank Lampard. But without Donovan, there may not have been a Beckham, and there most certainly wouldn't have been the pipeline of American talent that has consistently called MLS home over the last 14 years.

And now he's gone. And MLS has to begin this new era of American soccer without the most recognizable face the league has ever known.

The 2015 season will be the start of something completely different in MLS, which is precisely why the 2014 MLS Cup signified much more than the end of another American soccer season. This match—this moment—signified the end of an era.

Nobody, not even Garber, can be quite sure what version of American professional soccer reinventions we're up to at this point. One might suppose it depends on how far you go back in terms of initial inventions, but from an MLS-only perspective, the professional American landscape is changing for at least the third time since 1998.

"Landon comes in, we are down to 10 teams, and that's 2002," Garber told ESPN during the MLS Cup final. "Here we are with 20 teams, soon to be 22 with New York City FC and Orlando. I don't think we're still fully grown out. We're still going through that growth phase.

"I don't know when that full growth will come," Garber continued. "I've said that by 2020 we'll be at 24 teams, and we will be if not sooner than that."


Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2292688-landon-donovan-retires-a-champion-as-mls-must-begin-new-chapter-without-its-face