Five years ago, I wrote my debut column for ESPN Soccernet about
Landon Donovan, who was heading to Bayer Leverkusen after the 2004
MLS season.
The premise of the column was basically that Donovan needed
to go to Europe, and stay there for the long haul, because he had
nothing left to prove in MLS and he needed a better challenge.
Donovan lasted just seven matches with Leverkusen before
returning to MLS in 2005. He led the Los Angeles Galaxy to the MLS
Cup title that year, but even that title couldn’t erase the
feeling that Donovan gave up on Europe too quickly.
Here we are, five years later, and Donovan is the subject of
a debut column yet again.
He has matured as a player and person and improved
considerable since the last time he left MLS. He has shown that in
his first seven matches with Everton, which have gone just a tad
better than those seven matches in Germany some five years ago.
Plenty has changed for me during that time as well. From
spending more than a decade covering American soccer as a newspaper
reporter and columnist, to launching an award-winning soccer blog
(SoccerbyIves.net), it has been a fun ride covering the sport, a
ride that should only get better as I embark on this new journey
with Fox Soccer.
Ives Galarcep is FoxSoccer.com's newest senior writer who will
be covering U.S. Soccer and MLS.
