When it was announced that the 2026 World Cup was awarded to a joint North American Bid from the U.S., Canada and Mexico I was super excited! Watching the World Cup is a bit bittersweet when your own country didn't qualify. For the first time since 1986, the U.S. team failed to qualify for World Cup and that had to force some of us to look for new teams to root for. I'll admit that the USMNT is not the greatest team, but damn it if their players aren't passionate. Take for instance, Landon Donovan.

Donovan HAD the most World Cup goals, that is until Ronaldo did the hat trick against Spain, and was USMNT's all-time assists leader. He recently came out of retirement to play for Mexican Club Leon (which is actually one of my favorite teams as it's where my grandpa is from!) So when the World Cup started, Donovan was not hesitant to show support for the country that accepted him as their own:

Yeah, it's an ad campaign for Wells Fargo, but he truly does root for Mexico. Not surprisingly, he received lots of backlash not just from fans but from former team mates.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated's World Cup daily podcast, Donovan explained, and didn't back down, his support for Mexico, saying:

'Well I grew up with Mexicans. I literally learned how to play soccer from Mexicans and I owe a lot of my career to Mexico.'

He does admit that maybe he could have explained his personal story in a smarter way and the following day he tweeted out a better explanation.

 

More From KLAQ El Paso