Good Reads: Landon Donovan Joins Us to Talk USMNT-Canada, McKennie & What Needs to Change
Donovan and Chris Wittyngham Will Join Me After Every USMNT World Cup Qualifier In Partnership with Meadowlark and Le Batard & Friends
USMNT legend Landon Donovan will join me and Chris Wittyngham for podcast episodes after every USMNT World Cup qualifier to break down the game and share insights from his vast experience. Those podcasts, in partnership with Meadowlark and Dan Le Batard and Friends, will post on the night of or the day after every qualifier. Every audio episode of Fútbol with Grant Wahl is available for free in the archives on my Substack site, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and elsewhere.
The audio versions of my podcasts are free, including here, but for paying subscribers to this newsletter we’re going to make the written versions of these podcasts available as well. Some people just prefer to consume written content over audio content. Since we just launched, we’re making everything free for the first couple weeks, but these written podcast discussions will soon be behind the paywall. You can sign up for a paid subscription here.
Grant Wahl:
Hey there. Welcome to Fútbol with Grant Wahl. Thanks so much for joining me. We've got a special episode again today, in partnership with Meadowlark and Le Batard and Friends, with reaction from Landon Donovan, Chris Wittyngham and me to the U.S. men's national team's 1-1 tie with Canada in World Cup qualifying Game 2.
Landon's in San Diego, where he coaches San Diego Loyal. Chris is with me in person here in Nashville, where I'm writing for my Substack newsletter, which you should subscribe to, free or paid, at grantwahl.substack.com. Guys, great to see you. Not a great result. How are you?
Landon Donovan:
I'm doing fine. How are you guys?
“So I am privy to what happened. I'm not going to announce that publicly. I will just say, I am incredibly disappointed in Weston [McKennie] … I can understand at Juventus, during a long club season, you're sitting at home for months, and you want to have people over. Is it the smartest thing to do? No, but I get it. This is one week of your life with three massive games. Not only for yourself, but for your teammates and for your country to go to a World Cup. And the level of selfishness in that moment is beyond me …It is almost beyond repair, and he has a lot of work to do with his teammates to make sure that he never does something like that again.” — Landon Donovan
Chris Wittyngham:
Bummed out, I would say. I traveled just to watch this game as a fan, and I was there. I actually ended up separating myself from my friends just because I wanted it to behave like a lunatic in peace. And yeah, it was not fun. It was not fun.
Grant Wahl:
I will say this before we get going. This is the first time I've ever seen Chris Wittyngham in person after doing 150 podcast episodes over the last year and a half. It's nice to see you, Chris. You're a three-dimensional human being.
Chris Wittyngham:
Yeah, it's the same for you. I only know you as a Zoom window and it's nice to finally meet in person and actually get to talk as people for once.
Grant Wahl:
So, lots to talk about here. Let's start with you, Landon, and just dive right in. You calmed a lot of people down after the tie in El Salvador, saying, "That's common in CONCACAF qualifying." Dropping two points at home to Canada feels worse than that. What's your sense?
Landon Donovan:
Well, first I want to say, I tried to warn people also that Canada are a good team. So this notion also that you just win at home automatically doesn't happen. You have to earn it. And I went through that in '01. My first qualifier ever, actually, was at RFK [Stadium in Washington D.C.] against Honduras, and we lost 3-2. And you are not given the right to win these games. Not at all. Canada are a good team, and if you don't make the plays offensively and defensively that make the difference, again, you can walk out of these games with a tie.
I still want to wait through the end of the week until you have a total view of what the picture looks like, but right now, after last night, it is pretty grim. Dropping points at home is a huge missed opportunity, and now you have a really, really challenging game in Honduras, a team who has a lot of hope after two road ties, and they will go home and be absolutely crazy for this game and excited for this game. I guess, Witty, being there in person, what was the takeaway?
“What you have to do in home qualifiers especially is, you have to pile on the pressure. Eventually, teams under that kind of pressure with a home American crowd will crack. And there was a lack of that. There was never significant, sustained pressure on the Canadian defense.” — Landon Donovan
Chris Wittyngham:
For me, it was slow play, I think, was just the overall thing. And Christian Pulisic mentioned after the game as well that there weren't enough ideas. You're trying to pull apart a team that's in a 5-4-1, and they were very clearly bunker and countering. And they have such threats on the counterattack that it makes perfect sense. When Tajon Buchanan comes off the bench as a sub, nearly creates the winning goal, Alphonso Davies burned Sergiño Dest, burned DeAndre Yedlin, you know that that's their threat. And yet the U.S. kind of struggled to negate it. And then kind of going against a packed-in defense, but there's not great individual defenders within that Canada back five. They play that system because they don't have tremendous individual defenders, and yet I thought everything they tried to do to pull Canada apart didn't really come off. And that's the frustrating thing, that when they tried to switch the play with long diagonals, they died in the air.
They didn't get to their intended targets. I thought Antonee Robinson was conservative with his passing, was really sideways and backwards. Sebastian Lletget was conservative with his passing, sideways and backwards. There wasn't enough penetration. There wasn't enough trying to get through Canada. And they didn't really create that many opportunities. Their expected goals figure is about the same as it was for the El Salvador match. But in watching the game, it's like chances are at a premium here, and Canada actually looked more dangerous on the counter attack. John Herdman said after the game that he kind of felt like it's a missed opportunity for them, which only goes to show kind of how weak, it might be too strong a word, but it just wasn't a strong enough performance.
Grant Wahl:
Yeah. I mean, that's what I noticed too. Just after the game, it was in the press conference. You had John Herdman, the Canada coach saying, "We felt like we could have come away with three points here." And you don't want Canada coming in and saying that type of thing in that situation. Both teams ended up having just two shots on goal, I think, the whole game, and a lot of disappointment from this U.S. team right now, just two points after two qualifiers. Landon, what was your sense? The result's one thing. The performance is another, and this performance seemed lacking.
“I still want to wait through the end of the week until you have a total view of what the picture looks like, but right now, after last night, it is pretty grim. Dropping points at home is a huge missed opportunity, and now you have a really, really challenging game in Honduras, a team who has a lot of hope after two road ties.” — Landon Donovan
Landon Donovan:
Yeah. I actually separate those two when I'm evaluating our games here in San Diego. I always separate the result from the performance because in this sport, you can play really, really well and not win, or you can play awfully and win a game. So you have to separate the two. What you have to do in home qualifiers especially is, you have to pile on the pressure. Eventually, teams under that kind of pressure with a home American crowd will crack. And there was a lack of that. There was never significant, sustained pressure on the Canadian defense. And that is the weakness of their team.
No offense to Doneil Henry and Alistair Johnston and those guys, but that is the weakness of their team. And we never piled on enough pressure to make them crack. There were moments here and there, but it has to be sustained: five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes of constant pressure, free kicks, corner kicks, balls in front of their goal that put them under pressure. And we never did that, and that's why we weren't creating chances. That's why we didn't score goals. You’ve got to put them under more pressure.
Chris Wittyngham:
Well, what is that the product of, I guess, would be my question. Is it languid possession? Is it a product of, really, I thought again, Christian Pulisic was fairly anonymous just because he wasn't able to really get on the ball and be dangerous. That's happened quite a bit in the national team. What's the issue with getting him on the ball? I guess my question is just, what is that a product of? Is it an overly careful system? Is it players playing under pressure? I just don't know why the U.S. isn't able to really create that sustained pressure. They weren't able to at any point in the first 180 minutes of World Cup qualifying.
Landon Donovan:
Yeah, so I'm going to keep saying this phrase. I'm not there in person, I'm not in camp, so I don't have the full context, but watching with my eyes, there was a lack of desire to be a little more direct at times, a little more vertical at times. And you heard Gregg talk about it in the post game, too. Just the desire to put them under pressure with your running, with your movement, sending numbers forward. Maybe they were a little scared of the Canadian counterattack, and maybe that's why there was a little hesitation or reticence to really go forward. But if you're going to score goals against a team that's bunkered in like that, you have to pile on pressure with, like I said, with crosses, even deep crosses, putting balls in front of their goal, getting free kicks, corners, running at guys, putting the referee under pressure with the home American crowd to make some calls your way. And it didn't seem like that was the case.
And I'll get back to the same thing I keep saying. We have young, talented players that are playing at big clubs all over the world, but they don't have the experience in those kinds of games to do that. I promise you, mid-week in Honduras, you will see Honduras with experienced players put the referee under tremendous pressure by running at guys, putting balls in front of goal, making it really difficult. And that's something you learn over time in these games, and we're not there yet.
“If you're going to score goals against a team that's bunkered in like that, you have to pile on pressure with crosses, even deep crosses, putting balls in front of their goal, getting free kicks, corners, running at guys, putting the referee under pressure with the home American crowd to make some calls your way. And it didn't seem like that was the case.” — Landon Donovan
Grant Wahl:
One thing I want to ask here also is about after the game, Christian Pulisic said once the U.S. took the lead at 1-0 on Aronson's goal, he was disappointed that the U.S. didn't sort of change up things a little bit and defend a little bit more and try to win the game 1-0. Six minutes passed, the equalizer came, U.S. couldn't get the winner. And it sounded a little bit like, I'm just reading between the lines here, that Pulisic was a little disappointed with Gregg Berhalter for not switching things up. And I guess my question would be, is that the right approach to take when you're at home, to try and just sort of salt out a 1-0 win and sort of bunker in a little bit after you get the lead? Where do you come from on that, Landon?
Landon Donovan:
Well, actually, I want to flip it on you guys. What did it feel like in the stadium after the U.S. goal? Did it feel like Canada could get back in the game right away, or did it feel like the U.S. were on their way to a victory?
Chris Wittyngham:
For me, it kind of just felt like, "Well, let's just keep going with the way that we've been going," right? One of the other things that Christian as well mentioned in the press conference was, he wanted to see different ideas. There was a couple of goes at Gregg Berhalter, I felt like, in his comments, right, in terms of, "We need different ideas, we need to..." And I think really for me, what we're kind of talking about is, and you mentioned as well, Landon, with the experience, right? Going away from home, putting the referee under pressure, having the experience. Because of the nature of the team that it's so young, it seems like they operate on plan A and plan A only. So plan A was to establish possession, go forward, try and create chances with your passing. And that's all they had.
They weren't going to bunker in for a 1-0. They were going to try and put the referee… They're not adjusting to game situations. They're sticking to Gregg Berhalter's plan A, and that's what it kind of felt like after the goal, it was "We're just going to keep playing." It's just impossible in that moment in my view.
Look, Alphonso Davies is one of the fastest players in the world. He's one of the best players in the world. I understand getting beat by him can happen, but it just feels like DeAndre Yedlin got caught flat-footed there. The most important thing at that point is don't get beat by Alphonso Davies, like almost above all else. And the fact that they did for a fairly simple tap-in I think just kind of shows that they just kept on playing their game. They kept on playing in exactly the way that they intended to.
Grant Wahl:
I also felt like inside the stadium, there was a lot of excitement when the U.S. got the goal, but I think there was a let-up. And there was a let-up on the field from the U.S. team, which we see from time-to-time after you score a goal and you think you've got this advantage now. And the disappointing thing for me was it was veteran defenders who were at fault for the U.S. Not just Yedlin, but John Brooks really behind the play on the goal that was scored by Canada. And you can't do that in that situation. Those guys have been around long enough to know that you can't do that in that situation.
Landon Donovan:
Yeah. My takeaway... You guys were in the stadium, so you have a different vantage point, but I don't agree with Christian that at that moment of the match, you just sit in and bunker for 30 minutes. However, there has to be a pragmatism about you that helps you understand how important these last 30 minutes are. And what you'll realize, and now they're going to start realizing this, and we keep talking about how they need these experiences, the next time this happens, I can promise you in their brains, they're going to go, "Okay, remember Canada? If this is really ugly for the last 30 minutes, fine. It doesn't mean we're bunkering in. Maybe the last five minutes were bunkering in if we need to, but we are high-alert right now making sure we don't give up any chances and we just see this game out."
“I think Gregg [Berhalter] has handled [the McKennie situation] well. I give Gregg, by the way, a ton of credit for holding him out of the game. Because it would have been easy to say, ‘Ah, if it was another player, we can hold them out, but we need Weston in this game.’” — Landon Donovan
And oftentimes, guys, and you know this from watching, these games don't look like soccer games. They don't look like soccer games when you're watching Barcelona or you're watching Juventus or you're watching Norwich. These are not soccer games. They're just battles, and you're getting through the 90 minutes. One or two of these games during qualifying, maybe you get Jamaica at home, maybe you have a good night against Panama at home, where you win 3- or 4-0, but the rest of them are just getting through the 90 minutes and doing what it takes to get the points.
And that is something you have to learn. You just have to learn that over time. It's like a different way of playing soccer. And it's not fun, it's not enjoyable, but you just have to grind and get through it. I hope they learned that lesson after last night because there will be a time later in the qualifying, maybe it's Costa Rica at home, they score in the 60th minute, it's 1-0, and have they learned the lesson and just do what's needed in that moment to win 1-0?
Grant Wahl:
Now we haven't mentioned Weston McKennie yet, and I think we need to talk about this. There's still a lack of total information here. Here's what we do know. Weston McKennie was suspended for this game by Gregg Berhalter, the U.S. men's national team. After the game, I asked Berhalter what the reason was, mentioned that McKennie on his Instagram said that he had violated COVID protocols, that was the reason he was suspended. Even then, Berhalter wouldn't specify to my question the reasons. He also said that McKennie isn't guaranteed to be reinstated for Wednesday's game.
So we don't have a ton of information here, but we do know that earlier this year with Juventus, Weston McKennie violated Italian national COVID protocols by having 10 people over for a dinner party, and he and Paulo Dybala and Arthur were suspended for a game and fined by Juventus for doing that. So this is a second offense. It was a big game. McKennie's an important player, a leader on the team. And I guess, based on that knowledge, what should we make of that, and what do you think, Landon, knowing your history inside a U.S. men's national team, when stuff like this has happened, what's that like inside the team?
Landon Donovan:
So I am privy to what happened. I'm not going to announce that publicly. I will just say, I am incredibly disappointed in Weston. Incredibly disappointed. Look, I can understand at Juventus, during a long club season, you're sitting at home for months and months and months, and you want to have people over. Is it the smartest thing to do? No, but I get it. This is one week of your life with three massive games. Not only for yourself, but for your teammates and for your country to go to a World Cup. And the level of selfishness in that moment is beyond me. Honestly, it's beyond me. I've made a lot of dumb mistakes in my life. I get it. I'm not here to be all righteous. But he is young, yes, but he's old enough to understand that you don't do this. You don't need to put yourself in this situation and worse, put your team in that situation.
Would they have won the game if he was on the field yesterday? I don't know. But their chances went up a lot, I promise, if he was on the field, and their chances of winning or getting a point in Honduras go up a ton on Wednesday if he's in the lineup. I am just really disappointed with him. It doesn't mean you write him off and he's a horrible human being. He needs to learn from this, but this can never, ever, ever happen again.
It is almost beyond repair, and he has a lot of work to do with his teammates to make sure that he never does something like that again. Because you lose trust in your teammate. This is their livelihood. These guys want to go to a World Cup. Christian knows what it feels like to sit on the field in Trinidad, crying, because he didn't go to a World Cup. And you can't put your team in that situation. So it's really disappointing. I hope he has apologized profusely. I hope he is able to make the trip on Wednesday for the game, and he needs to make amends. He really does.
Chris Wittyngham:
The interesting thing is, I was reading yesterday just to reacquaint myself with what happened, but Andrea Pirlo, toward the end of his reign in Juventus, did question Weston McKennie's professionalism. He said that when he arrived, he was kind of a 50% professional. And he eventually grew to 100%, but this is not the first time that his professionalism has been questioned. His character is more fun-loving than problematic, right, or causing issues for a team, but this is kind of a career crossroads for him, where he was nearly sold by Juventus. He was yanked off at halftime in their last game. You wonder how much Max Allegri is going to really want to keep him in that Juventus team. Now he's been kicked off for COVID protocols. This is a real crossroads for him to figure out who am I going to be as a professional, right?
Obviously, he seems to really enjoy all that comes with being a professional footballer, and the extracurriculars, right? But this is a moment, where, particularly in a COVID era, you've got to be a professional. And when that's coming into question, that's like a very base thing that we're talking about, you just hope that it's not emblematic of an overall setup problem or anything. It's just a him problem. But it's something that's got to get fixed. He's a key member. When we talk about this generation of players, he's one of the first names that comes off your tongue. It was stunning when he went to Juventus. It was thought he was going from Schalke to Southampton, right? All of a sudden, he's at Juventus. He's one of the players that is a part of this turnaround in this generation, and yet, the fact that he hasn't held up his end of basic professionalism for a year and a half is kind of alarming.
Grant Wahl:
Yeah. I totally agree with that. I'm wondering, Landon, now that you're a coach and you have the wisdom of being a coach, is there anything that you know now about handling players and situations like that that you didn't know when you were a player?
Landon Donovan:
Well, you're looking at it from the whole team perspective, right? So I think Gregg has handled it well. I give Gregg, by the way, a ton of credit for holding him out of the game. Because it would have been easy to say, "Ah, if it was another player, we can hold them out, but we need Weston in this game." I give Gregg a ton of credit for saying, "No. That is the rule. You violated it. You put your team at risk, and you're going to sit because of it." It hurt the team. It did. It hurt the team. They might've won the game last night with him in there. So I do have certainly a different perspective because you're looking at it from that standpoint, which is the whole team. Again, I made a lot of really dumb mistakes. I did dumb things when I was that age.
I missed a flight once with the Earthquakes to Tampa, and I sat on the bench that game because I missed a flight. I missed my alarm. I made a lot of dumb mistakes, but Weston is smart enough to know that he was breaking a rule, clearly, and he shouldn't have done it. And it's as simple as that. There is plenty of time, guys, I can promise you, plenty of time throughout the year where you can go be a 23-year-old who's rich and famous and enjoy that. Plenty of time. And this was not the time for it, during the first week of qualifying. This was not the time for it, and he knows better.
Grant Wahl:
Before we wrap up, I want to ask you guys. I'm flying to Honduras tonight. I'm exhausted. I assume the players are exhausted. The three games, adding the third game in this compressed schedule, is just a lot. Unlikely that Sergiño Dest, sprained ankle, Gregg Berhalter said, will be available for Wednesday [Note: Dest won’t be.]. I guess we'll see. You know, Weston McKennie may or may not be available. [Note: McKennie was sent home by Berhalter on Monday and will not play in Honduras.] Gio Reyna will not definitely be available. He's already flying back to Dortmund. How important, how must-win is this game, Landon? It's just the third game out of 14, and yet, if the U.S. doesn't win this game in Honduras, there's going to be a real sense of gloom about three or fewer points in these first three games.
Landon Donovan:
If this were a 10-game qualifying process, I would say this is, not mathematically, obviously, but very, very, very close to a must-win. However, with 14 games, you do get a little leeway, especially that this game is on the road. The problem, the bigger problem is, is dropping the points at home. And that will kill you. Canada is probably the second or third most challenging opponent at home. Mexico and Costa Rica will provide problems too, Panama, maybe, but you can't drop the points at home. So now it makes it, when you put pressure on yourself where you have to win on the road, that's when qualifying can really go the wrong way for you. And you cannot put pressure on yourself to have to win on the road. You can even lose on the road and be fine. But if you have to go into a game like this, where you feel like you have to win, that's where it can really go haywire.
So I think a point is still okay in Honduras, especially because you're not giving them three points. But this is going to get hairy really fast if it's a point or no points, and they start the next three games with a point or no points in the first game, this can get hairy really fast, so you’ve got to be careful.
Chris Wittyngham:
I want to talk about the overall pressure that's on the U.S. setup. I would say two important positions. One, the manager, because I do think that Gregg Berhalter is getting a ton of criticism in the press right now and how he's kind of handled these two games. The lack of ideas, the lack of goal-scoring. And also at the No. 9 position, I would say kind of just walking around the stadium and talking to people, these are the two figures that get the most conversation is, "Is the coach doing enough?"
And I want to talk, Landon, about something that you mentioned, which is that these games are going to be ugly. That no matter what you do, it sometimes isn't soccer. I guess my question would be why? Like, why is it that you think that Gregg Berhalter with his ideas or Jurgen Klinsmann with his ideas or Bob Bradley with his ideas or everyone who's coached this team, can't figure out a way to kind of play the game on the U.S.'s terms, right? In theory, they arrive at this game as the more talented team. They arrived in El Salvador as a more talented team. Why can't they impose themselves? Why is it so hard for Gregg Berhalter? Because I really do think that this is why so many U.S. fans are frustrated. It's that the U.S. are not imposing themselves. They're not obviously better. Even if they had won 1-0 last night, people still would have been frustrated at the quality of the performance. Why do you think that it's this hard to impose yourself as the United States?
Landon Donovan:
It's a great question, and there are a lot of factors. On the road, I'll say, is totally different than at home. So while I was much more lenient with the analysis of the El Salvador result, I'm much more critical of the home match against Canada because you don't have all those excuses or all those reasons that we talked about: atmosphere, fans, field, travel, weather, etc. Last night, seemingly, was a great night to play soccer. There was nothing adverse about those conditions. So on the road, I give them some leeway, but at home, it's what I talked about earlier, Witty, is you have to put them under real pressure. I'll give you an example. So we played the LA Galaxy's second team yesterday, and there was a stretch in the first half where we had them under intense pressure and we finally scored. It was about a 10-minute period where we just were going and going and going, and you could just feel they were going to crack.
And conversely, at the end of the game, they had us under intense pressure, and they ended up scoring a second goal. We won 4-2, but they score a second goal because they have us under intense pressure. And when you're in enough games, you just feel that coming. I never felt that coming yesterday from the U.S. I never, even when they scored, it didn't feel like that was coming and the pressure was piling on. So what mature teams do, and why qualifying was a little bit, I hesitate to say easier, but for some of the more experienced teams in the past, it's because they knew it didn't have to be beautiful, but they knew where to put the ball or how to play the ball, or what kind of service to provide, or how to use your body to leverage, to put teams under pressure, put the referee under pressure.
And right now what we're doing is we're basically making it a coin flip. We're saying, "Okay, we'll go into the game. The referee might not be great. We're not going to put anybody under any real pressure that matters. And it's just going to be a coin flip. We made one great play. They made one great play. 1-1." And if you go into qualifying that way, you're going to get hurt eventually. You're playing with fire, and eventually, you're going to get burned. And we did.
Grant Wahl:
We're going to do this again after the next qualifier Wednesday night at Honduras, a game that probably has more importance now than we might've thought heading into this qualifying campaign. Guys, thanks for joining me.
Chris Wittyngham:
Thanks Grant.
Landon Donovan:
My pleasure. Let's hope it's a better one on Wednesday.
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Good Reads: Landon Donovan Joins Us to Talk USMNT-Canada, McKennie & What Needs to Change
One issue to me with all that has transpired is that the U.S. advantage in quality depth is not really materializing with injuries (Dest, Reyna) and McKennie's situation. Instead of being able to count on Honduras being worn down in the condensed schedule, I think the U.S. could be just as fatigued, especially with Pulisic being a question mark on how long he can go.