Soccer, Landon Donovan | featured news

A team made up of some of soccer's biggest names — David Beckham, Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane — finds redemption by winning the MLS Cup. Who says Los Angeles can't win a pro football championship? It just did, Sunday night in a poncho-filled bandbox in Carson, so chilly the players' breaths appeared in puffs, so soggy their socks were caked in mud. Folks in this country call it soccer, but, goodness, this was football, powerful and passionate, players fighting through the Home Depot Center muck while thousands serenaded them with streamers and songs, throaty voices rising above the tempest and eventually landing somewhere deep in the Galaxy.

Clint Dempsey scored in the 77th minute off an assist from Landon Donovan, and the United States advanced to the Gold Cup final with a 1-0 victory over Panama on Wednesday night.