“…the ball fell to me, and time kinda stopped…”
These words were Landon Donovan’s response just minutes after scoring the most clutch goal in United States Men’s National Team soccer history at the 2010 World Cup. Donovan’s last minute goal against Algeria was the difference between his team going home, or going on. It turn out to be one of the most important moments in the history of American soccer.
For the last four years, Donovan has had plenty to prove. The overwhelming joy of the team’s astonishing quarterfinals appearance in the 2002 World Cup was all but forgotten after an utterly dismal encore performance at the 2006 World Cup, where they didn’t win a single match. Being the face of the team is great when times are good. But when crap hits the fan, it’s not much fun to be holding the bag.
Before each game, Donovan is militantly serious. He’s the guy who barely blinks during the national anthem, choosing not to sing or even bow his eyes. He gazes straight ahead, with his focus only on the filmstrip in his mind, mentally rehearsing the competition upcoming. Each pass finds its way. Each dribble is balanced and true. Each shot off of his boot finds its way to the target. Even with hundreds of millions of people watching, the man is a statue.
After this particular game, the mood was much different. Donovan was different. It was no longer time to prepare, it was time to reflect. No more need to “Write the Future“, just to swim in the immediacy of now.
The live ESPN post-match coverage showed an interview with Donovan about five seconds after the camera started rolling. Here’s that same interview, with the first five seconds in tact:
It’s incredible how quickly he gains his composure in this interview. He knew this part would come. As the face of American soccer since 2002, he’s given thousands of interviews. This was his moment at the top of the mountain. Time to share with the world how it had all gotten to this point.
He thanked his teammates, talked about the hard work he had put into everything, and compared the whole experience to a journey. It was all true, and exactly the type of answer that everyone would expect. He played the part just like the leader that he is expected to be.
I heard somebody somewhere say that “leadership leaks”. The idea is that the influence that a leader has come less from conscious, deliberate methods or actions, but more from what leaks or spills out in an accidental or subconscious way. The most important details of who we are often leak out the sides of what we are trying hardest to portray to others.
When a guy cries like that, he’s got a lot more than a soccer match on his mind. What or who was on his mind leaked out at the end of the video, which was cut out of the ESPN feed above, but can be found in the last second of this clip on Youtube here:
Bianca Kajlich is Donovan’s ex-wife. You can read online about their three-year marriage and eventual divorce. Who blows a kiss to their ex-wife? Even though the terms were reportedly amicable, a divorce is usually not something that anyone wants to celebrate.
In a great article about his growth from the failed 2006 experience and his failed marriage, Donovan talks about how much he has grown from it all. From the time that you choose to get a divorce, to when it is finalized, there is a part of you that is happy to have a scapegoat for so many of your problems, struggles, and issues. When the divorce is finally real, that scapegoat is gone.
“Bianca taught me a lot more about myself than I knew.”
The picture that I get from Donovan is that his ex-wife was a type of mirror for him. She tended to show him his warts, and nobody really wants to stare at those. You can argue with a mirror all you want, but it just reflects back to you what is truly there.
Once he realized that he was responsible for his failures on the field, and the ones in his marriage, it empowered him to make some changes.
“There are expectations from people and that’s a good thing, but what is most important to me is what I expect from myself.”
Redemption can be either be salvation from something you have done, or a return of something valuable that has been lost. However his relationship with Bianca moves forward, or however his team finishes this 2010 World Cup, Landon Donovan’s time of redemption is at hand.
