CARSON, Calif. – Landon Donovan was already in the LA Galaxy's locker room when he caught Steve Ralston, pulling even for the top spot on MLS's career assists list about 20 minutes after delivering the ball that Robbie Keane tucked away to complete a 4-0 romp over the New York Red Bulls.
He still didn't believe it was official until he was talking to media maybe 15 minutes after that, but he was quite pleased to match Ralston's mark, even if he's said during the run-up that it really isn't all that vital.
Donovan assisted three goals Sunday – two from Keane, and another from Gyasi Zardes – to give him 135 with four games before retirement to snag sole possession.
“I'm proud of it,” said Donovan, who has a career-best 18 assists this season and scored his 10th goal of the year in the 50th minute. “To get an assist record, you have to have a lot of people scoring goals, so it's not just putting the ball in the right place, it's people finishing, and they scored three very good goals tonight, which helped.
“I've had a lot of guys score a lot of goals on my behalf, so it's a credit to all of them, too.”
There was no question about Donovan's assists on Keane' cheeky chip, nor Zardes' finish from a nifty give-and-go in New York's box for the third goal. The finale was iffier: did Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles or defender Ibrahim Sekagya redirect the ball between Keane's initial touch but before his shot?
As a result, Donovan wasn't awarded the assist by Opta, MLS's official statistician, until just after the final whistle.
Keane was stunned when he heard how it played out.
“To give a ball like that [and not get an assist]?” he said. “Clearly, whoever made the decision must have gotten a phone call from someone who's actually played the game.”
Donovan already owned the MLS career goals record – Sunday's was his 144th – and he's the US national team's No. 1 in both categories (with 57 goals and 58 assists).
The record for scoring says one thing about him; what does the assist marks say?
“I've always tried to be a guy who makes the right play in front of the goal,” he said, “and so if that means making the pass that leads to the pass that [feeds to goal], if that means making the pass that leads to the goal, or if that means shooting if you need to shoot, I've tried to make good decision in those moments.
“They come fast, and it's not always easy to make the right decision, but I've tried to always make the right decision when I can, and more often than not when I made the right decision, guys have gotten in good spots and scored. That's something I'm proud of. I've always wanted to be that type of player. I didn't want to be one-dimensional, I wanted to have all sort of different parts to my game, and I hope that showed.”
Donovan says he's long admired Ralston, a Houston Dynamo assistant coach who played from 1996 through 2010 with the Tampa Bay Mutiny and New England Revolution.
“He's a good guy,” Donovan said, “and I've always thought he was perhaps the most underrated player in this league.”
Now he hopes to drop Ralston to No. 2.
“I want to get it. I do want to get it,” Donovan said. “But I'm not going to pass up an easy shot to get it. If I get in that position, I'm going to shoot and try to score. If it's in the right circumstances and I see the right pass, I'm going to make it.
“I'm not going to kill myself trying to get an assist every time, I'm just going to keep playing the game, and I think it will come.”
