American soccer writers are idiots
Landon Donovan is the American Player of the Year? Are you having a laugh? Are you serious?
For what? For taking a lot of penalty kicks? For coming back from Europe to play against easier competition in MLS? For missing out on the US national team's toughest tournament? For sucking out loud for the last-place Los Angeles Galaxy?
I get that the award is based only on international play. But he skipped Copa America to inflate his stats in the Gold Cup against inferior competition. And guess what? Almost all of his goals came on penalty kicks ("PKs" for the idiots).
This is unreal. Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard, Damarcus Beasley, and probably Carlos Bocanegra all deserve that award four times before Donovan deserves it once. Yet it is Donovan who has won it four times.
Why? Well, there are two clear reasons why:
1) The quality of soccer writing is so poor in this country that he is the only name the writers recognized on the ballot.
2) He is the American face of MLS and there was some heavy politicking going on to make sure he won the award to help market the league.
Only, as usual, the clowns in charge of MLS missed the boat. American soccer fans hate Donovan. And they are smart enough to know he has not had what could be considered close to the best season.
Grant Wahl, in the name of Pele, please call out your brethren. Reach out. Educate them. Explain to them that they are just plain dead wrong here. This is embarassing. A typical read can be found at ESPN by Andrea Canales, who hands Donovan the award without any comparison to the other nominees. Even otherwise smart writers like Nick "Employee of MLS Partner Fox" Webster is trying to sell this.
