I’ve written it a hundred times. I’ve known Landon Donovan since he was 16. I’ve been writing about him since then. I’ve been in his family home in Redlands and in his first home in Manhattan Beach … and, well, he was the rare major athlete I had anything resembling a quasi-friendly relationship with.

I’ve been disconnected from him in a big way since these overseas gigs picked up (two-plus years ago, that is), but even before then I could feel him withdrawing. Turning a bit defensive. Guarded. I wrote something like that once before, and he was unhappy about it, but it’s true. So, whatever. That happens when a guy reaches some critical mass of “people want parts of me” … and that happened 5-6 years ago, with him. If you’re really a friend of his, or even an acquaintance, you wait for the celebs to come out the back side of celebrity-dom and pick up where you left off.

What I can’t quite figure out about him now is … these very public private stories that he has become caught up in, in the past few years. I can’t imagine he wanted this to happen. I know he didn’t. Yet, there it is.

The latest? Well, it came out on TMZ, and I still am convinced Landon never thought he would live a life in which his private matters were deemed worthy of TMZ coverage.

In this case, it’s his divorce — again — from wife Bianca Kajlich.

If Landon were only the most famous American soccer player and his wife was some anonymous person, maybe this isn’t TMZ-worthy. Soccer isn’t quite there, in terms of public awareness. Not like football and baseball and basketball.

But he happens to be married to an actress who became fairly famous during their marriage, and I suppose now it’s a double-whammy of fame — and enough to make the two of them TMZ-worthy.

Bianca’s career was spluttering when she and Landon met, at the ESPY awards show in, I think, 2002. She had a bit part in a cheerleader movie called “Bring It On,” but she hadn’t done a whole lot else. Now, however, she is part of the ensemble of a fairly successful sitcom, “Rules of Engagement.” (Actually, I like the series quite a bit; it’s on my “must-see” list, a list which runs only about eight network shows deep. David Spade and Patrick Warburton are the key guys.)

So, in the divorce papers obtained by TMZ (and those guys must spend a lot of time at the court houses; really old-school, actually, and in a good way.),  we learn that Landon and Bianca have 1) filed for divorce again and 2) Landon is asking for “spousal support” from Bianca. Which is not going down well. Which is holding him up to public ridicule, actually.

(Which makes me wonder if Landon doesn’t need new representation, if someone didn’t stop this from happening.)

Anyway, Landon makes something like $900,000 a year from the Galaxy. Plus whatever he makes in endorsements. Plus whatever he makes with the national team and in his two winter stints with foreign clubs (Bayern Munich, Everton). It’s safe to say his gross income is well into seven figures.

But it may not be as much as Bianca is making now. Remember when the “Friends Six” were each making $1 million per episode, there at the end?  Rules of Engagement doesn’t generate that much cash, but still … $100,000 per episode? Sounds do-able. Which means Bianca is now making something like $2 million a year. More than Landon.

And the “spousal support” thing may make some basic economic sense. Maybe they bought some hugely expensive house, in the past few years. Or have serious car payments. Maybe Landon (or his people) looked at his income, looked at hers, noted that Binky (as Landon called her) now makes more money than he does and also became a major earner during their marriage (important, under California law), and Landon and whomever he talked with agreed, hey, what’s fair is fair,  even when I have my own income streams.

Sigh. We shouldn’t even be talking about this … which Landon would say, too, while somehow managing to make an intellectual disconnect between what is happening and anyone from his past (me, for example) noticing it. Doesn’t make it an act of betrayal. It’s an elephant in the room.

It started more than a year ago when Bianca, I believe it was, filed for divorce. Then it caromed through a “girlfriend in Liverpool” phase, and then became very public — to the point that people who knew nothing about any of this wondered what was up when Landon blew kisses at Bianca and said hello to her on national (if not international) TV after the dramatic victory over Algeria in the World Cup in June.

They apparently reconciled, which seemed nice, because they have so much history. Going back to when Landon was a rock for Bianca during a traumatic incident in December of 2003, involving her brother and a horrible subway accident in Prague. From a distance, it seemed like, “Hey, maybe they’re meant to be together.” The matching hummingbird tattoos, and all.

Landon also got more than a little attention for his comments about David Beckham, which came out in a book last year. But that wasn’t nearly the issue the current divorce is.

For Landon’s sake, I hope this goes down quietly. I don’t think it will.

I believe he would like to be remembered as an athlete, not as a celebrity.  I don’t even know what to tell him, now. Not that he would ask. The genie is out of the bottle. But this is the kind of attention he doesn’t want and doesn’t need. Maybe Hollywood people like the idea of their names being bruited about, no matter the circumstances (see: Lohan, Lindsay), but I will never believe Landon does.

And straying over to the soccer side of things … I think it’s good that he’s taking off this winter. He’s been playing too much. He needs the rest.

There. A soccer topic. Let’s hope we go back to those.