SD Loyal will face MLS opponent familiar to Landon Donovan
Donovan’s USL Championship team will try to upset L.A. Galaxy
Stepping up in class, Landon Donovan’s San Diego Loyal team will face the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer.
Kickoff for the U.S. Open Cup match is set for 7:30 p.m. on April 19 at the Galaxy’s home, Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson. ESPN+ will air the game.
“This is a huge opportunity that’s very rare,” Donovan said Friday.
The opponent is familiar to Donovan, who led the Galaxy to three MLS titles as an offensive star. Though he retired from MLS in 2014, he is still the Galaxy’s leader in goals scored. A statue of him was unveiled last fall outside the stadium.
But, in reply to a question, Donovan said he won’t be taking his players to see the statue. He said his Galaxy history isn’t pertinent to the looming match.
“I spent 10 years of not only my career but my life there,” he said, “but, honestly, the role I’m in now, I don’t get to, nor do I want to, think about myself anymore. I want to make sure my team is as well prepared as possible so they potentially can have an incredible memory coming out of that game.”
San Diego Loyal (4-1) opened this season with a 2-1 victory against the Galaxy’s developmental team in the United Soccer League.
Indisputably, MLS — one tier above the USL — is the top U.S. men’s soccer league.
“We all are fans of MLS,” said Donovan, who drew MLS job overtures the past two offseasons that led Loyal Chairman Andrew Vassiliadis to extend his contract. “They have very good players. They have guys they could sell for millions and millions of dollars, if not tens of millions of dollars.”
Named after the late Lamar Hunt, the Texas billionaire who founded the American Football League, the Open Cup pairs teams from several levels of U.S. soccer.
SD Loyal can be likened to Rocky Balboa getting a shot to box Apollo Creed — but being Creed is fun, too, said Donovan, who “immensely enjoyed” playing Open Cup matches against underdogs ‘because it was just a different opponent.”
SD Loyal’s 2-1 victory Wednesday against Albion San Diego was the franchise’s first Open Cup match, as the event was canceled by the pandemic in the Loyal’s other seasons.
Though no soccer expert equates SD Loyal’s ability to that of the Galaxy — whose 3-2 record stands third in the 13-team Western Conference — Donovan forecast both teams will take a similar tactical approach.
“They’re going to go attack; I’m sure that that’s their mentality,” he said. And, true to the style Donovan has insisted upon since the Loyal’s launch, San Diego won’t assume a defensive posture. Doing so, he said, would guarantee defeat because L.A. is just too good.
“We only get so many opportunities in life to do something special,” he said. “So, there’s no point in changing who we are just because we’re playing a much better team than we’re used to.”
The Loyal will resume USL play at 7 p.m. Saturday against Charleston at the University of San Diego.
