Landon Donovan will have a statue erected in his honor at Dignity Health Sports Complex, joining David Beckham as the only two LA Galaxy legends to receive that distinction.
What other MLS great deserves such recognition? That was debated by the Extratime panel of Andrew Wiebe, David Gass and Charlie Davies.
Gass chose a pair of defensive figures from a pair of MLS originals: Shalrie Joseph with the New England Revolution and Eddie Pope with D.C. United.
Gass called Joseph, the former defensive midfield standout, “behind Landon in that era, I think he was the second-best player in the league.”
While acknowledging Jaime Moreno would also be a quality choice, Gass gave props to a boyhood idol in Pope, the backbone of Major League Soccer’s first dynasty.
Davies also went with two choices — sorta.
He gave a nod to Dwayne De Rosario for helping lead the Houston Dynamo to back-to-back MLS Cup titles in 2006 and 2007, then said Nick Rimando and Kyle Beckerman at Real Salt Lake would be a toss-up.
For being the architect of Sporting Kansas City's success, Peter Vermes would be Wiebe’s obvious choice, though he acknowledged Vermes would probably veto that while still holding his current roles.
“Maybe that has to wait until he's no longer the head coach,” Wiebe said. "But he's built them into one of the standard-bearers of the league as a manager and he won an MLS Cup as a player and was the captain of the team as a player.”
