Dear Landon Donovan,

Things are going well for you at Everton, so well in fact that I think you’re making a lot of fans.  But I’ve always been a fan of yours.  I’ve been a fan since back when we both had a full head of hair.  I was a fan before you, as a 17-year-old, were called up to the National team.  And I was a fan before that first Sports Illustrated profile of you.  They were impressed, SI was, that a top European league wanted you, and so they Bryce Harpered you, as they are wont to do, and they ensured that unless you were half-Pele, half-Dalai Lama that you’d be forever labeled a disappointment.  You were 18.  I don’t think you (or maybe just your image) have ever recovered.

You’re only 6 months older than me, but at the time of that piece you were in Germany and I was in high school.  It quickly became obvious that you were unhappy there; of course at the time I was unhappy anytime I had to leave the 562, so I don’t think it was a sign of weakness that Germany was just too…much for you (I nearly said “too foreign for you” but that seemed too Palin of an explanation.)  Anyway, I think all the animosity towards you–perfectly summed up by the “Landy-Cakes” nickname–still stems from that first ill-fated run in the Bundesliga.  It probably didn’t help that you’d make a couple more trips back to Germany and none of them worked out well (especially the ill-fated trip in Summer of 2006.)  All of this has added up to an under-appreciation of you. 

You won the MLS Cup that first year back stateside which in hindsight is a lot like the Indianapolis Colts winning their first playoff game this past season- sure it released some tension but ultimately you weren’t perfect and everybody was going to hold it against you.  You won the Championship twice more but all that secured is that you were, and almost always have been, the best soccer player in America; which, in keeping with the Colts theme, is like Peyton Manning being called the best regular season quarterback ever- it’s true but sarcastic, impressive but still disappointing.

I think you know that you have a bit of a reputation.  Not just the “soft” label- which to an athlete is as devastating as “ugly” would be to a model- but also that you choke in the clutch.  It’s hard for a soccer player to be labeled a choke artist- you’re not an NFL kicker, there isn’t one specific moment where the action stops and you specifically are called on to rise to the occasion, well actually there is one time when that happens: penalty kicks.  They’re your specialty.  They’re how you became the all-time goal-scorer, they’re money in the bank for you…except when something’s really riding on it.  Something like the SuperLiga or the MLS Cup.  Both times you’ve come up, for a PK, with a chance to win it all, and missed.  It’s only twice.  2 times out of the hundred that you’ve had.  But those two times loom large.  They’re the cherry on top for your detractors.

And these detractors are vocal.  But don’t listen to them, don’t even listen to what your countrymen say; instead you should look at how your enemies view you.  Mexico is scared of you.  Scared like a Toyota driver in stop-and-go traffic.  Mexico, and its fans, remember the clutch PK you put away in the Gold Cup final.  It tied the game and we scored the winning goal ten minutes later.  They remember that you made it 2-nil over them earlier that year in a “friendly.”  They remember you scoring the nail-in-the-coffin goal, eliminating them 2-nil in the 2006 World Cup.  In fact, I’m willing to bet that some of them remember that your first ever international goal came against Mexico in Los Angeles in 2000- anybody that says you never score on foreign soil has never seen a US/Mexico game in LA.  I bet they have nightmares about the goal you scored against Brazil in last year’s Confederations Cup- you ran past, and through, a team that was supposed to be faster and more creative then you.  It was a goal that a Brazilian would be proud of.  That goal scares everyone- scares your enemies because you have that potential, scares your friends because we don’t see that potential realized often enough.  And that, ultimately, is why you don’t have a lot of supporters.  Because you occupy that territory between fantastic and frustrating. 

I wonder if all this bothers you.  I also wonder if the Beckham stuff was good or bad for you.  Did you need that adversity?  I don’t want to say that you’re the Paris Hilton of the MLS but the league has certainly always granted you a charmed life.  Did you need to have your captaincy stolen from you in order for you to rise up and reclaim it?  Like Conan O’Brien when he comes back on Fox to remind us what we saw in him in the first place.  Did you need to play alongside an actual International to prove to yourself that you could cut it?  Whatever happened these last few years they seem to have paved the way for you to succeed in Everton like you never have in Europe before. 

But to truly gauge your success, and your place in the heart of true American soccer fans, you only need to look at Twitter.  Yes, Twitter; it’s Sunday Ticket for the American soccer fan: a way to track all games at once.  And there are a couple of great American soccer authorities to follow (namely: Grant Wahl and Jamie Trecker).  They update every goal, every card, every time an American does something well (like Jozy’s goal this past week), and you, Landon.  You’re the only one that doesn’t have to do something impressive for them to mention you, just your mere presence is tweet-worthy.  In other words, you’re fascinating.  And you’re still America’s great #10 hope (real quick cliff notes version for soccer numbers: #1 is your keeper, #9 is your scorer, #10 is your leader, and #26 is the guy who sleeps with teammates’ wives.) 

Something amazing is happening during your exile, you are truly succeeding with Everton.  You’re a fixture in their starting XI, you’re a threat on the wings, you serve up a great cross, and you even have put one in the back of the net.  You’re doing something that many assumed you couldn’t do: succeeding.  But there’s a problem: the Galaxy are expecting you back next month.  They’re expecting you to leave England three months before we meet them in the World Cup.  So, please, do me a favor, do America a favor- don’t come back. 

Don’t leave Everton, don’t leave England, don’t take a step back and rejoin the MLS.  Wear a disguise, wear a wig (the funkier the better to fit in with Everton), plead asylum, whatever just don’t come back home.  We need you there.  You need you there.  You are learning more daily there then you would in a lifetime back here.  Just stay until the World Cup, please.  I know it’s going to be hard to tell the Galaxy “no”, they’re going to spin it and make you look terrible but stay put.  You’re going to hear a lot of detractors saying that you should come home, but ignore them.  It’s what you’ve been preparing for this whole time.