That wasn’t such a chore, was it? A mere 421 days after the U.S. national team lost in Trinidad and failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup … and the Yanks have a coach! That would be Gregg Berhalter, recently head man of Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew. Not a glamor hire, certainly. Berhalter […]

[Read more →]

It is part of the original Major League Soccer playbook: When trying to gain attention, sign someone with a big name. And few names in soccer are bigger than Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the towering forward from Sweden and veteran of many of the biggest club sides in the world. He is a different sort of end-of-career […]

[Read more →]

Ah, so it wasn’t just his missing the game. Not all about “don’t know what to do with myself.” It also was about getting paid. According to a newspaper report in Mexico, Landon Donovan will be paid $180,000 per month by the Liga MX club that has brought him out of retirement. In North American […]

[Read more →]

What is Landon Donovan doing? In short, he has decided, for a second time, to resume his soccer career. He first retired at the end of the 2014 Major League Soccer season, when he was only 32. He went out with a bang — with his sixth MLS Cup championship, the Galaxy’s fourth during his […]

[Read more →]

One of the worst teams in Major League Soccer has signed German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger. Five years ago, this would have been an enormous coup for the Chicago Fire, which has not won a playoffs match since 2009. But the Schweinsteiger the MLS club signed is 32, with skills fading in real time, who appeared […]

[Read more →]

Well, yes, it appears Landon Donovan’s soccer playing career has ended without a formal declaration, which we suggested last month when a deal to play for Real Salt Lake fell through. Donovan now seems interested in the business side of the game, which would mark an obvious, prominent and perhaps lucrative move for him as […]

[Read more →]

Is Landon Donovan’s playing career over? It may be, and not necessarily because he prefers it that way. First, the LA Galaxy in December said Donovan had retired — after the club could not come to terms with him. Donovan remained quiet, however, and then came a reported offer from Real Salt Lake. That alleged […]

[Read more →]

Landon Donovan apparently is considering continuing on in Major League Soccer. This, after a couple of months of interesting-but-not-scintillating play with the LA Galaxy at the end of the 2016 season. That he could keep up at all is impressive, in his nine games back, during the autumn. He is 34, will be 35 in […]

[Read more →]

Well, that was ugly. And perhaps unfortunately timed. Bob Bradley, the first American to coach a team in one of Europe’s biggest five leagues, was fired by Swansea City today — only his 85th day on the job of the English Premier League club. He was a dead man walking since Swansea’s 4-1 home loss […]

[Read more →]

Jurgen Klinsmann was fired today and it looks as if the U.S. Soccer Federation is taking our advice on another matter, too: Bruce Arena as the new/old U.S. national team coach. That would be Bruce Arena, he of five MLS Cup championships, three with the LA Galaxy, and a quarterfinals run at the 2002 World […]

[Read more →]