Donovan Heads for Bundesliga
Say auf wiedersehen to Landon Donovan.
The United States’ most successful and highest-profile soccer player is heading back to Germany to fulfill the promise of his youth.
Donovan, 22, announced Tuesday that he would leave the San Jose Earthquakes, which he led to Major League Soccer championships in 2001 and 2003, and rejoin Bayer Leverkusen of the German Bundesliga.
Given Donovan’s previous unhappy experience in Germany, it was not a decision made without misgivings, but he made it anyway.
“They have assured me that it’s not prison I’m going back to,” the midfielder from Redlands said of talks he had in Germany this month with Bayer Leverkusen Coach Klaus Augenthaler and other team officials.
“Germany wasn’t always the friendliest place for me when I was younger. They’ve assured me if I don’t like it -- if I hate it and I don’t want to be there and it doesn’t work out -- they will do whatever is in their power to make me happy.”
Donovan was only 16 when he was signed by Leverkusen in 1999, but his initial experience on and off the field in Europe was not a positive one, a fact underlined Tuesday by Ivan Gazidis, the deputy commissioner of MLS.
“It’s difficult to put into words how we all feel today,” Gazidis said. “Four years ago, I went to Bayer Leverkusen to try to sign a homesick 18-year-old kid who was having difficulty adapting to Germany and getting playing time with the Leverkusen first team.”
Gazidis and Donovan’s agent, Richard Motzkin, succeeded in getting Donovan back to the United States on loan, and Donovan has since proven his worth many times over to MLS.
“Over the past four years, Landon has made a huge difference to where this league is,” Gazidis said, “and we find so much positive momentum in so many areas of our business and in the development of the game in the U.S. Landon is a big part of that.”
But Donovan was always under contract to Leverkusen, and although the German club -- which is 11th in the Bundesliga and tied Real Madrid, 1-1, in Spain on Tuesday in the European Champions League -- allowed a two-year loan to become a four-year loan, this time around it wanted Donovan back.
The U.S. national team’s three-time player of the year felt obligated to oblige.
“Given the fact that they have always been loyal to me, always been fair to me, given me the chance to do what I love to do, I feel that it is fair to at least go back and try it out ... and see how it goes,” Donovan said.
Donovan, who also speaks German and Spanish, said Augenthaler “made it clear that I will be given the chance to play if I perform.”
MLS did not try to buy Donovan’s contract because it recognized that the player’s mind was made up.
“It’s not me having to go back to Germany,” Donovan said, “it’s me wanting to go back to Germany and excited about going back and about what the future holds.”
Donovan will report to Bayer Leverkusen’s winter training camp in the Canary Islands on Jan. 3 but said he would return to MLS someday.
“I want to assure everyone that MLS is absolutely in my future at some point,” Donovan said. “I wish I could tell you when, [but] I don’t know.”
