Donovan drops the torch

The 24-year old midfielder was the Americans’ best hope to create scoring chances in Thursday’s first-round finale, since veterans Reyna (who suffered a knee injury in the 22nd minute) and John O’Brien (who’s not fully recovered fr[an error occurred while processing this directive]om sundry ailments) were unavailable.

But after playing an inspired match versus Italy last Saturday, Donovan endured a nightmarish day at the Franken-Stadion, disappearing for long stretches of the match and failing to do anything substantive with the ball when he did have it. On an afternoon when Donovan needed to make this U.S. team his own, he stumbled badly.

"Not great," Donovan said, when asked to assess his performance. "I’ve worked hard at trying to find the game when it’s not there, when it’s not presenting itself. (But) for too many periods throughout the game, I wasn’t tuned in enough.

"I wasn’t finding those little knockdowns. I was a second late on a bunch of plays. I felt in the last 10 minutes, I finally got a little juice going, and that’s way too late. It wasn’t my day."

And as a result, it wasn’t the Americans’ day.

With Donovan a non-factor for much of the second half, the United States couldn’t establish a credible link between the defenders and the forwards. MLS veteran Ben Olsen, who came on as a substitute for Reyna, probably did his best. But he fell far short of the quality that Reyna brought to the team.

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"He’s probably the most crucial player, not only in terms of his position on the field, but also what he contributes to the team," U.S. left midfielder Eddie Lewis said of Reyna, who all but announced his retirement from the national team after the match. "If there’s one player you didn’t want to lose, it was him. Hopefully, his knee’s OK, but it was definitely a blow to the team. In the second half, if he was in there, I’m sure there would have been a few more opportunities going forward."

But Donovan, considered Reyna’s heir apparent and America’s best young player, had to pick up the slack in central midfield. It could have been a career-defining performance for the Los Angeles Galaxy star, but instead, Donovan invited more questions about when — or if — he’ll make the jump from very good to consistently great.

"He didn’t have one of his better days, that’s for sure," said U.S. head coach Bruce Arena, who had criticized Donovan’s lethargic showing in the first-round opener against the Czechs on June 12.

That performance and Thursday’s struggles ultimately overshadow his fine form against Italy. Thus, this World Cup was a poor one for Donovan, who played so well in 2002, when the Americans reached the quarterfinals.

Donovan is better and more mature than he was four years ago, and this team might be more talented than the 2002 squad. But Germany 2006 certainly didn’t turn out the way anyone in red, white and blue would have wanted.

"We had a mix of 11 guys not bringing it all at the same time, including myself," Donovan said, "a lot of unluckiness (like) hitting the post, horrible refereeing, and everything went bad. And in 2002, everything seemed to go right."

Tim Bresnahan, who is at the World Cup, is a contributing writer for The Daily Star. E-mail him at tim—bresnahan@hotmail.com.