Jurgen Klinsmann says that Landon Donovan is ready to play an important role for the United States upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
The Galaxy captain was called into the United States' 24-man squad for a pair of World Cup qualifiers on October 12 against Antigua and Barbuda and on Oct. 16 against Guatemala at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. That Donovan would participate seemed surprising as he was forced to come off in the latter stages of last Saturday's 2-1 defeat to Real Salt Lake due to an apparent knee injury.
During a conference call with the members of the media, Klinsmann touched upon a few questions regarding Donovan.
(On Donovan's condition...)
KLINSMANN: "We were in touch over the last few days, obviously. He was supposed to do an MRI this morning in LA and he skipped it because it improved a lot during the day. We spoke last night and he said that if [the knee issue] is even better in the morning then he would skip the MRI and come straight to Miami, which is the case."
(On what role Donovan plays with the USMNT...)
KLINSMANN: "Definitely as an attacking player. If he comes wide or if he comes behind two strikers, what we need in these two games is to create chances and we need to score goals. Obviously, we are happy that Landon is part of these two games. He kind of shook off that knee issue that he experienced on Saturday night so he's ready to go. If he plays wide or comes through the middle, as long as we create chances and we score goals then it's all fine with me."
(On Donovan's injury...)
KLINSMANN: "We have been in touch with [the Galaxy] medical team, our trainer Ivan Pierra knows everybody really well so they communicate back and forth. We communicated with Landon Back and forth so first thing, he comes in here this afternoon, we'll check him out, but as he said to us, the reason why he's on the plane [to Miami] is because it looks really good."
