Enough already with the annual Landon Donovan award

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Enough already. This is getting just about as boring as watching Tiger Woods smack a small ball into a small hole and winning every other tournament.

Landon Donovan on Tuesday won the Honda Player of the Year award for the sixth time when he was selected the U.S. national soccer team’s best player of 2009.

It was the third consecutive time the Galaxy forward has picked up the honor and the car that goes with it. He also won it three times in a row from 2002 to 2004.

Donovan, 27, received 424 points in voting by 221 media members nationwide, finishing far ahead of goalkeeper Tim Howard with 267 and forward Jozy Altidore with 178.

‘I had three goals at the beginning of the year, Donovan told reporters at the awards luncheon in Los Angeles. ‘One was to qualify for the World Cup. The second was to get the Galaxy to the playoffs. And the third was to be as complete a player as I can be at this point in my career.

‘I know I accomplished the first two, and I feel I accomplished the third.’

All well and good. But perhaps they can just name it the Landon Donovan Award from now on and he can withdraw his name from contention and allow others a chance.

It’s beginning to seem very much like big fish, small pond.

The real problem, of course, is not that Donovan, like Woods, has won everything in sight, but the fact that since Donovan made his national team debut in 2000, the U.S. has not produced a single player of similar caliber. Not one in 10 years.

That’s not his fault, but it is someone’s.

-- Grahame L. Jones