Landon Donovan
American soccer player
Landon Timothy Donovan (born March 4, 1982) is an American-Canadian former professional soccer player and coach who played as a winger or forward. He most recently was the interim head coach of San Diego Wave FC of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Widely regarded as one of the greatest American players in history and as the greatest U.S. men's national team player of all time, Donovan was the all-time top assist provider in international football (58) until 2023 and is tied with Clint Dempsey for the most international goals scored by a male U.S. player (57). Donovan won a record six MLS Cups and is the league's all-time assists leader with 136. The Major League Soccer MVP Award has been renamed the Landon Donovan MVP Award in his honor.
An early soccer product of IMG Academy, Donovan signed for Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen in 1999, though the majority of his club time was spent on loan with the San Jose Earthquakes of MLS, winning the MLS Cup in 2001 and 2003. In 2005, Donovan moved back to the United States permanently to sign with the Los Angeles Galaxy, winning the MLS Cup in 2005 and the MLS Golden Boot in 2008. In 2009, he returned to Germany for a loan with league champions Bayern Munich, and twice went on short loans to Premier League club Everton in 2010 and 2012, winning his fourth MLS Cup between the loans in 2011. He returned to LA Galaxy and won the MLS Cup twice more in 2012 and 2014. He retired as a player in 2014, but made a brief comeback with Galaxy late in the 2016 season and then in 2018 to play for Mexican club León.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Landon Donovan” as american soccer player. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american soccer player. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q202237. VIAF identifies the subject as 51088926. The Library of Congress control number is n2004155469. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982, 2023, 1999 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Landon Donovan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.