Speaking Spanish

Unless Brad Guzan has gotten a lot better, Landon Donovan and his former San Jose teammate, Ramiro Corrales, are the only ones on the current U.S. roster who speak Spanish. They're probably going to be swamped with requests once they get to Houston.

Here's the video one of our readers alluded to earlier, where Landon addresses the Mexican public. What's funny is that his first mistake is one I still make sometimes - trying to say, "They don't like me," it comes out, "I don't like them." It's weirdly easy to do that in Spanish.




Hi, everyone in Mexico. I know that you I don’t like – er, that you don’t like me very much, but that’s fine. I respect your team, and especially all of you as people. If you want to support your team in the stadium, that’s good. If you want to yell – if you want to yell stuff at me, that’s ok, but if after the game, there’s respect, that would be nice.

Voiceover: Landon Donovan is one of those persons that Mexican fans don’t like very much. His way of acting on the field, the way in particular that he refers to Mexico, and more than anything, the goals he has scored against the Tricolores, have hurt deeply the team’s fans.

The reasons that we win versus Mexico: 1 – we know how Mexico plays. 2 – We have a mentality, in each game, how to play – how we want to play the game. Every time, we do that, and then we win.

Voiceover: The U.S. player knows that, like any streak, the longer it continues, the closer it is to ending one day.

There are lots of times where Mexico can win. Perhaps with a little more luck in the last five or six games for Mexico. . . It’s going to happen one day – that Mexico wins in America against us, but at this moment, we’re just about equal, and it’s always a good game.

Voiceover: For the game on the sixth of February, Donovan won’t prognosticate. He does have a certain desire, though.

If we win, that’s great. If I score a goal, that’s even better. But if I don’t score a goal and we win, I’ll be very happy.

The rest of the clip is the commentators arguing about which team is better, the U.S. or Mexico. They generally agree with Landon's analysis of why the U.S. has been winning.