Landon Donovan Backs any Depressing Personality to come in Open

20 Sep 2016

Landon Donovan reckons if someone has gone through or is going through depression, he or she should be open about it as there is no shame in it.


Donovan who himself had an experience of depression three years before believes when people have such experience, they are reluctant to say anything about it to the others because they think it is a rare condition, but, it is actually not that rare and a number of people go through it at some point.

Donovan believes there are different kinds of feelings inside a human being and sadness is also one of those feelings. When sadness intensifies, it turns into depression and it can happen.

In the view of Donovan, depression happens in sportspersons generally after the retirement because once they stop playing, they don’t get as much attention as they did while playing and they struggle to digest it. It sort of gives them the feeling that the triumphs of their playing days are getting undermined.

Donovan had opted not to offer his services for about twelve weeks to his national squad due to the depression he said he was suffering from and that break which he took virtually triggered his end as an America international as his manager Jurgen Klinsmann sacked him from the team ahead of World Cup.

Klinsmann conceded that, he did not see enough effort from Donovan to get back to the standard he had set for himself once he returned and as a manager; he couldn’t let anyone’s reputation come in the way of his duty.

Taking a dig at the manager, Donovan says that passing an opinion on someone without being in his shoes is the easiest thing in the world, but, not necessarily the right thing.