COMMERCE CITY, Colo. – Landon Donovan was back on the training field on Monday afternoon, only this time he wasn’t the one with the soccer ball at his feet.
The LA Galaxy and USMNT legend, who retired from his playing career at the end of the 2014 season, is in Colorado to lead the MLS Homegrown team against the Club América Under-20s in the 2015 Chipotle MLS Homegrown game on Tuesday night (9 pm ET, LIVE STREAM on MLSsoccer.com), the first coaching assignment of his post-playing days.
For a man who has seen it all when it comes to playing on the fields of the United States, Canada and beyond, the chance to coach some of the brightest young players in the North American game represents a step into the unknown, even if he was initially hesitant to take the job when approached by the league.
“At first my reaction was, ‘Why would they want someone who’s never coached a day in their life to coach a team?’” Donovan recalled to MLSsoccer.com after leading his first training session on Monday. “But then I thought about it more and I thought it’d be a great experience.
“Life is fun when you go out on a limb sometimes and you put yourself in uncomfortable situations. So I’m learning a lot, and that’s important.”
And not only is Donovan learning a lot, he’s doing it all on the fly. Unlike Tuesday night’s opponents, the product of a long-established and highly successful youth development system in Mexico, the Homegrown team has only really come together Sunday and Monday, with four players on the 22-man roster not even able to make the Monday training session.
“You’ve got guys coming from all different places – some guys don’t play at all, other guys are playing a lot,” Donovan said of the challenges he’s faced over the last 24 hours. “You’ve got to deal with the heat and altitude and try to figure all that out. It’s been good for me, as someone who didn’t graduate high school, it’s like going back to school and figuring all these pieces out, but it’s been really fun.”
As far as the training session itself went, Donovan was quick to acknowledge the help he had from a group of experienced colleagues: Galaxy assistant coach Pat Noonan, Colorado Rapids goalkeeping coach Chris Sharpe and Galaxy U-16 coach Mike Muñoz.
They were responsible for the design and implementation of most of the session, but Donovan had plenty of words of encouragement and advice as the practice unfolded.
“He just wants to get us out here, get our legs moving, get the blood flowing, not kill us too much because we play in 24 hours, so it’s been good,” Colorado Rapids midfielder Dillon Serna told MLSsoccer.com. “He’s a guy that I looked up to growing up, and I got the opportunity to play against him last year, so it’s been a cool experience.”
Donovan, likewise, had plenty of good things to say about the young men that he will be leading at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park Tuesday, saying he was “very impressed with all of them.” And despite facing a very tough opponent in América, he was quick to dispel any ideas that he was nervous ahead of his coaching debut.
“No nerves. I can see myself where these guys were, 15 years ago,” he explained. “I’m excited for them and just want them to be able to enjoy it so our goal is to make them comfortable, let them get to know each other a little bit and then go out tomorrow and have fun. It should be fun experience for them,” he enthused.
All in all, it’s been an enjoyable challenge so far for Donovan. But the question on many fans’ minds as he sets out on his post-playing career is likely to be, ‘Will you keep coaching?’
“I’ll see. This is my first experience. If we win, like, 7-0, tomorrow I’ll probably want to be more inclined to keep doing it,” he quipped. “So I’ll see how it goes. This is a chance to have a different experience in life and find out if I’m really passionate about it. So far I love it, so we’ll see what happens.”
