Donovan hoping last match ends in MLS Cup victory

Landon Donavon will be hoping the last game of his career can end in glory. His LA Galaxy side is odds-on at 8/15 to beat New England Revolution in the MLS Grand Final.

Galaxy’s 32-year-old midfielder, who announced his retirement earlier in the year has scored 10 goals this season, laying on 14 assists. His teammates would like nothing better than to send him out on a high.

“It would be the perfect ending for him, to go out with a championship,” said Galaxy midfielder Stefan Ishizaki.

“Obviously we want to win for him, but I think we’ve all been working together for 10, 11 months now, working every day in practice and battling our asses off,” he continued.

“We’ve got one more game left and everyone wants to do everything they can to win it.”

Donovan, 4/1 to open the scoring, admitted recently that the reality of the situation hasn’t really begun to sink in until lately.

“It’s been a little different than the past few,” he admitted. “I didn’t know what was coming next; now I know. I’ve been very excited every day to wake up and go to training.

“Candidly I don’t want it to end. I personally want it to be as enjoyable as possible, and that would be winning. These guys deserve it and I want to help do that.”

New England head coach, Jay Heaps said it is important for his players to ignore the implications of the day’s game.

“Our job is to focus on what we need to do,” Heaps said.

“Landon is an excellent player, a legend, and his legacy certainly will stand on its own. But for us we’re going into this game preparing ourselves and continuing to stick to our process and prepare for the game on Sunday.

“All of that other stuff is just noise. We have to focus on what we need to do.”