US national team legend Landon Donovan chimed in on the USMNT’s failure to qualify for the World Cup on Wednesday morning, expressing his disappointment with Tuesday’s results on The Dan Patrick Show.
Like many, Donovan, the US’s all-time leader with 57 career international goals, was troubled by the lack of urgency shown by the USMNT in their 2-1 loss at Trinidad & Tobago on Tuesday night.
“The most disturbing part for me was the lack of urgency displayed,” he said. “We all know in sports anything can happen, you can lose games, that’s all part of it. But the lack of urgency to really understand what was it stake was really disheartening for me and candidly it was really hard to watch.”
Donovan held off on calling out any players, coaches or administrators by name, but repeatedly said that it was a failure that the US even had to worry about their final qualifier on Tuesday night.
“It should never come down to having score one goal in Trinidad to get to the World Cup, he said. “In our history we’ve had to do that, but I think we’re past those days where that should happen. The reality is we lost two games at home in qualifying, which, and I’m not a statistician, but I don’t know the last time that happened. And we lost a game in Trinidad against a team that had nothing to play for. And so that’s sort of the reality of the situation. It’s unacceptable in every way and it’s disappointing and we got what we deserved. If you can’t win more games at home in qualifying and if you can’t beat Trinidad in a game that matters for us and doesn’t for them, then you don’t deserve to go to the World Cup.”
Check out Donovan’s full comments in the above video.
