Goal.commentary: Honda POTY Went to Wrong Man

By Zac Lee Rigg

Fair dues to Landon Donovan: winning the Honda Player of the Year Award for a record five times is nothing to stick up your nose at. The next highest tally for a single player is twice.

Donovan has been a crucial piece of the national team’s success and a boon to the MLS both in sporting and marketing aspects. For that he deserves praise. Also, he can play some ball. With all that in mind, he did not deserve this year’s trophy.

I know, I know! I’m another hater, you’re thinking to yourself. Perhaps I’m a Euro-snob, or yet another dime-a-dozen Galaxy detractor, or, better still, just a cynic. I probably sit at home on weekends thinking of mean things to say to people when they cut me off on the freeway.

I’m here to tell you that I’m none of those things. I just happen to think Tim Howard more than deserved to win this award for the first time in his solid career.

Look at the statistics, will you? Donovan posted an impressive 20 goals this season to win the MLS Golden Boot. He even added a handy 9 assists. But his team finished tied for last place in MLS.

Let’s run that last one by you again: last. LA Galaxy tied for points with an expansion team in San Jose Earthquake. Sure, that’s not entirely Donovan’s fault. His numbers and, at times, performances were impressive. But I can only wonder what would have happened if he had flipped his stats around.

What if he had accumulated 20 assists and 9 goals? What if he had shown more eagerness to drop deep and create for others, ala some of the others in the running for the league MVP? Or what if he had been possessed with the same berserker drive that powered him in his most astonishing performances, like those against Chivas USA or DC United?

Alright, you’re still not buying it. He had a damn good season, you say, and you’d be right. I’ll still whimper that soccer is about winning and he didn’t help his team do that, but let’s move on.

Let’s take a gander at Tim Howard’s season, shall we? The Everton net-minder has been in the form of his life. It’s unclear as to the exact amount of time this award covers, but for the sake of argument, we’ll say it spans the calendar year and is released a month early. In that time, Howard has posted 13 clean sheets in the Premier League alone—no padding from any Carling Cup fixtures.

 For comparison, Donovan’s Galaxy kept exactly two clean sheets in that time. I don’t think I’ll cause any shock waves in the soccer world if I point out that attacks in the Premier League are better than those in MLS. I might even garnish a couple murmurs of agreement. At his club, Howard has been doing his job. He’s keeping out everything but the unstoppable, and helped lead a financially disadvantaged Everton team to an impressive and unlikely 5th place, ahead of higher spenders in Aston Villa, West Ham, and Tottenham.

Even on the international stage Howard has been performing at a higher level. Under an ultra-rigid and defensive Bob Bradley, Donovan spends most of his time shunted out on the wing or too deep to have a proper run at goal. For the past while he hasn’t looked like that marquee player we’ve all come to lean on in the national team, ready to take on nations single-handedly and rip their defenses to slender strips.

Howard, on the other hand, has been a disciple more than worthy of national team legends Kasey Keller and Brad Friedel. He has pulled off those astonishing saves only those on peak form can muster, while also keeping out the simple tries as well. Even when up against powerhouses like England, Spain, and Argentina in a series of friendlies, no one can find an easy way past him.

It helps that he meticulously organizes the defense ahead of him, and that he’s utterly fearless when diving in for a ball. So, sure, Donovan had quite an individual season. I’ll admit to mitigating circumstances surrounding his club and country results, but surely those must be accepted.

Him winning this award tells me the voters had no regard for two things: an ability to make those around the player perform better, and defense. Defenders are consistently overlooked for awards, mostly because it’s not as fun to watch.

Just ask Iker Casillas after he loses this year’s Ballon D’Or or Rinat Dasayev who is still waiting for his World Soccer Player of the Year Award unjustly snatched from his grasp in 1988.

Write me off as the grumbling purist or the inconsolable cynic if you will. But when you cut me off in traffic, I will patiently let you in. Oh, and Tim Howard will still have had a better season than Landon Donovan.

--Zac Lee Rigg is an associate editor of Goal.com USA