Landon Donovan is resting, or at least you would think he would be after the busiest and most tiring 11 months of his professional career.
A 2010 that began with him dodging snowflakes and impressing fans in England ended with him wiping sweat from his brow as he walked off a field in Australia. In between he played almost non-stop. From the Premier League to MLS, then to the World Cup, then back to MLS.
Aside from a week off between the end of the World Cup and his return to the Galaxy, Donovan had very little in the way of rest for most of the year. Even a surprisingly early playoff exit didn’t lead to rest right away, not with a friendly in Australia to play.
This December, much like last December, Donovan is resting. The question now is will he keep resting when the new year arrives, or will he embark on another marathon year?
Donovan will have to decide whether he wants an Everton return this winter, or if he’s going to try a loan move with another European club. It’s one or the other since, at this point, it seems unlikely that a European club would be ready to pay the Galaxy’s asking price for Donovan.
No, it will be a loan or nothing and you really have to wonder what exactly Donovan stands to gain from another loan move.
Does he really need to prove himself in Europe again? Not really.
Does he really need the money? Not when you consider he’s already making north of $2 million with the Galaxy.
Could he want to help out Everton as the club struggles this season? Doubt it.
Might he want to go and stay in England until the summer, thus helping his transfer value and also freeing up some cap room for Los Angeles to sign other players? Now there’s a thought.
Would another loan move really be worth it? Would it be worth the extra wear and tear, particularly when Donovan faces another busy year, with the Gold Cup and World Cup qualifying looming in 2011?
Surely he and the Galaxy remember what happened to David Beckham when he went on a second straight loan to Europe. Beckham tore his Achilles and missed the World Cup and most of the 2010 MLS season.
Donovan is younger than Beckham was, seven years younger to be exact, and has been great at avoiding injuries throughout his career, but he’s still risking his availability for the Galaxy and U.S. national team by playing another two months or four months in England. It only takes one bad Nigel De Jong tackle to turn a seemingly harmless loan move to Everton into a disaster. Yes, that’s a worst-case scenario, but at what point does Los Angeles ask why it is risking its best player?
It might sound counter-intuitive but a longer loan may actually be better for Donovan and the Galaxy. How so?
If Donovan were going to go on loan for the entire second half of the European season, and therefore free up salary budget space for the Galaxy, then it starts making more sense. Only half of Donovan’s max salary hit would count against the salary cap -- space that could be used to sign another player.
Also, if Donovan stays with Everton through the July 15 MLS transfer window he would actually assure himself some rest. Everton’s season would be over by late May, leaving Donovan a chance to rest both before and after the U.S. national team convenes for the summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.
And what about those months that Los Angeles will play without Donovan?
The Galaxy has enough talent to win without Donovan, particularly if the team signs a third Designated Player (something that would be made easier by the cap space created by a long Donovan loan.). With MLS playoffs having ten teams now it would be even less likely that the Galaxy would miss the playoffs and having just won the Supporter's Shield it isn’t as if Los Angeles would be sacrificing so much by not playing without him.
What would matter more is having Donovan back in July, ready for the stretch run, with more rest under his belt than he had a year earlier at the same time. If Donovan simply tried another short loan, he would wind up playing straight through to mid-November again, and given how clearly fatigued he looked at times this year, another such marathon could wind up doing more harm that good.
Ives Galarcep is a senior writer for FoxSoccer.com covering Major League Soccer and the U.S. national team.
