Landon Donovan turned himself in for soccer treason, but only after Jurgen Klinsmann ruled that the United States' most popular player was un-American.
The Los Angeles Times' Bill Plaschke reported this weekend that Donovan responded to his dismissal from the US men's national team just prior to the start of the 2014 World Cup by cheering against the team.
The U.S. had a warmup match against Azerbaijan a few days after coach Klinsmann cut Donovan from the roster, and Donovan allowed himself to go there - to soccer treason.
"I'll be completely honest, watching them play Azerbaijan, inside, part of me was thinking, I hope the game doesn't go very well today," Donovan said in a phone interview with the Los Angeles Times. "In my heart of hearts, I thought, if we get a 1-0 win and the team doesn't perform well, that would feel good."
A more stunning revelation, however, would have been if Donovan immediately harbored no ill-will toward the team. There are countless stories of collegiate or amateur athletes who are drafted a lot lower than projected, and several of those athletes vow to make the teams that passed on them pay.
Would Michael Jordan still have cheered on the U.S. Olympic basketball team had he been left off it?
So the fact that Donovan then said he felt awful about his initial response less than a day later almost qualifies him for soccer sainthood.
"Then the next day I woke up and said to myself, that's a really crappy way to feel," Donovan said. "That's a bad way to live your life, it doesn't help me, it doesn't help the team, it doesn't help the energy that the team needs."
Donovan turned his snub into a hilarious commercial for EA Sports in which he acknowledges his snub. He has served as an analyst for ESPN and talked about his experiences when he was on the team.
And he has scored three goals in three games for the Los Angeles Galaxy, becoming Major League Soccer's all-time leading scorer.
No one's calling him un-American anymore.
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