Team USA and Ecuador will play on the international friendly World Cup schedule on Friday and the match is live from ESPN on TV and streaming from the WatchESPN website online as Landon Donovan plays his last game for the United States Men's National Team before retiring and the American star will wear the captains arm band at Rentschler Field in East Hartford and the game starts up past 7 pm ET.
Donovan is one of the most decorated players in USA history and while he did not make it onto the team in Brazil for the World Cup with Jurgen Klinsmann, the coach is giving him the arm band for this final game. Donovan and his MLS team are also still alive in the Major League Soccer season heading into the playoffs, so he will play 30 minutes worth of time to stay fit heading into the weekend. Klinsmann and Donovan have not been friendly through all of this, but this final game will be a way for the team to honor one of their longest tenured players.
Donovan has been the most visible US player over the past decade and this would have been his fourth World Cup for the United states had he made the cut. The US plays both Ecuador and Honduras this month and the matches are the first action back home since the team made their run in Brazil before eventually falling to Belgium. The US team played very well and it looked like they had a real chance to win against the Belgians, but the team could not pull it through.
Losing Jozy Altidore in the first game of the World Cup was devastating and while the team made it through to the knockout stage, they did not get as far as they would have hoped. U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati working things out to bring Donovan back and while Klinsmann knows he has limited time with his team, he realized that this was something that Donovan deserved after all he had given US soccer, even if he likely wouldn't have done it on his own.
DeAndre Yedlin had a breakout run at the World Cup and now he has a big deal with a European team after playing with the Sounders this season and he is looking to play well through the season. The USMNT has played against Ecuador before and they have two wins in the series and five losses and they are looking to win after losing the last matchup three years ago. Donovan has played against the team before in 2007 and he scored a hat trick in that game.
Donovan and Klinsmann have some bad blood and Donovan has not been afraid to mention it, as he did in an interview with SI.com. It also looks extremely petty of Klinsmann to have not even spoken with Donovan about this game or some comments his son made at Donovan earlier in the summer. Klinsmann is being nice enough to give the captains arm band and for him that's enough. Either way, Donovan will be front and center for this match and he should be. He will wear the armband and then he will head back to LA to join his team as the Galaxy play against FC Dallas this weekend.
Check here for the Team USA and Ecuador live coverage.