BEIJING, May 24 (Xinhuanet) -- USA leading scorer Landon Donovan was among seven players left out of the United States squad when coach Jurgen KIlinsmann cut thirty names to twenty three.
After being involved in last year's Gold Cup it was thought the striker had done enough to be included but the German coach has dropped him at the last minute.
Clarence Goodson and Maurice Edu were among seven others who are also not going to Brazil. The US have gone with a young looking squad.
Donavan has been the face of American soccer for the past decade, both with the national team and with Major League Soccer where he's won five titles. The Americans are in an extremely difficult group with Germany , Portugal and Ghana.
The 32-year-old striker was bidding to make his fourth World Cup but Klinsmann went in favour of Aron Johannsson and Chris Wondolowski. Donovan appeared to be fit, and after 156 international appearances in which he's scored 57 times, he certainly had the experience.
He'd played 12 world cup matches and had scored five goals. A US record, in fact, it is more than any other player from the CONCACAF region.
"Well obviously it's the difficult side of it for a coach for every coach that has to kind of talk to a player not being part of it going forward is not easy because you feel for the player you hope that they keep still very positive and you communicate it in a way that if tomorrow somebody gets injured you're the first one that you call in so the door is not closed for them because we still have a couple of weeks to go and God forbid injuries happen so then you need to call upon them and hope that they stayed sharp stayed in a good shape and rhythm and they take it positively but obviously for the player it's a very, very bitter pill to swallow," said Jurgen Klinsmann, U.S. head coach.
(Source: CNTV.cn)
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