Team USA's Landon Donovan Found World Cup Final 'Hard to Watch'

By Bryan Alexander Posted Jul 12th 2010 07:23AM

One guy who wasn't glued to his television set when Spain took on Netherlands in the World Cup Sunday afternoon? Team USA star Landon Donovan.

Donovan admitted to PopEater he had not watched the game on Sunday afternoon. He blamed it on a busy schedule -- and the fact that he still believes America should have been fighting for the championship.

"It is hard to watch," Donovan, 28, said. "You think you should be there."

The LA Galaxy star (and former LA Dodgers season ticket holder) spent Sunday at Dodger Stadium, meeting players and fans and throwing out the first pitch for the game against the Chicago Cubs. He was in no rush to get home and watch the Word Cup finals set on his TiVo.

Distancing himself was part of the letting-go process for Donovan after the team's crushing loss to Ghana 2-1, which knocked them out of the tournament. "You're so immersed in it for long," he told us. "You want to get away from it. Besides, you know you can beat all of these teams."

Donovan even pointed out Team USA's victory over eventual World Cup champion Spain in 2009 to reach the Confederations Cup final.

"We beat them last year and they end up winning," Donovan said. "But that's why they are the champions [of the World Cup]. They won."

Donovan said he has been amazed by the US reaction to his team's effort in the World Cup. On the first day back to America he was mobbed on the floor of the stock exchange with USA coach Bob Bradley. "Almost every person came up to me and said something along the lines of, 'Thank you for inspiring us,'" Donovan said. "It was really cool."

And will this feeling translate to renewed interest in the sport in the US? "My thing is, if we made a few more fans along the way, that eventually helps your sport get better and better. That's all you can do."

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Tags: Landon Donovan, World Cup

Comments

(8)

Monday 12 July

By dvdfrnzwbr

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LeBrons Descision made a bigger headline than the entire World Cup Tournament.

By I Will

Lebron is a moron who chose the national spotlight to cr** on a city and then ask the city to say thank you for his most holy cr** because it came from the bowels of King James.

By blink

Would have been sweet to kick a little Spanish butt in that tourney, if they weren't fixing their purty hair or falling on the ground in pain every two minutes.

By Nico Toscani

Soccer is "hard to watch" in general. The only sport than makes Hockey look exciting.

By William

Waiting for middle-America to "get" soccer is about as hopeless as hoping for television programming that isn't mind-numbing and stupid.

If by that you mean it's a sport for foreigners, then I agree 100%.

I cannot hear you because your Fox News is playing too loud. Please suck down another lite beer and scream louder

Man, have you got me pegged wrong. I would rather pluck out my eyes than watch Fox News and its conservative, hate mongering. I just find soccer mind numbingly boring and think it appeals more to foreigners who were raised on it. I'm sure they find American football equally as boring.

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