I don’t allege to be the ultimate Landon Donovan watcher. I’ve known him since he was 16, but it’s not as if he’s been readily accessible for the past few years.

And this may be more about just reading between the lines than any special insight.

On the Everton Football Club home site, Landon is quoted as saying he would like to go back to Everton. Not now, necessarily. Not this year. Actually there are no definitive statements in here at all. Someday.

And it’s just my take that Landon is being polite here.

I have no doubt he has enjoyed Everton. Why should he not have? The fans have loved him, the club has played well while he has been there. He was on the field when Everton defeated Chelsea and Manchester United, victories of global significance.

But study this paragraph:

“I would definitely imagine that I will be back here at some point in my life. I think it’s been an incredible experience and away from football, the people have been extremely nice. That being said, I do miss LA, I miss my teammates there, I miss the sunshine. That’d be nice to get back there too.”

The key words in that paragraph, as a Landon-ologist?

“That being said …”

Some of what might be in play:

–Landon has never liked cold, dark weather. And that’s Europe in the winter. His first winter in Germany, more than a decade ago, he might have been on the verge of clinical depression — which is not unusual for SoCal natives dumped into northerly latitudes. He has been around for a particularly cold stretch in England, too. No accident that he mentioned  “miss the sunshine.” In SoCal, he lives in Manhattan Beach.

–He may in fact miss his teammates.  A Major League Soccer team is mostly Yanks. A Premier League team can be from anywhere. Maybe a plurality of Brits, but the rest of the crew is a little United Nations. (Was it Arsenal that fielded an entire lineup of non-English players a year or two ago?)

–Landon is contractually bound to MLS and the Los Angeles Galaxy. He has done the math, and he wonders how Everton, a team with modest (by Chelsea and Man U standards) means will be able to pay him. A fair question.

–He can’t keeping play 10 months a year. He is well into his second year of two months of really intensive Euro football, followed by an MLS season and various and sundry national team obligations. He is 28 next month. This is not a pace anyone would want to keep up, and Landon turned scientific about his career a few years back. (He is very big into nutrition and body-upkeep.)

Anyway, there it is. He had fun. He would like to come back. At some not-stipulated point in the future. What else would you expect a polite guy like Landon to say to the people at the Everton website?

Maybe he goes back someday. I wouldn’t bet on it, though, not in his prime — unless he’s OK with playing year-round for the foreseeable future.