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Last Call with Carson Daly
06-28-2002

Carson: Welcome back. My next guest has helped lead the United States to its best finish in the World Cup, that’s soccer, since 1930. Plus, he’s the only guy I know who scores regularly, without ever using his hands. Take a look.

[Footage of Landon scoring his goal in Mexico game]

Carson: From Team USA here’s Landon Donovan, Landon…

[Applause and music plays while he enters. Crowd chants ‘USA!’]

Carson: All right.

Landon: All right.

Carson: What do you think this is, a German bar in New York at 4:30 in the morning? This is crazy what people do watching the World Cup.

Landon: Nuts huh?

Carson: Let’s talk about this, so you beat Mexico 2-0, you lose to Germany in the quarters. What is the team’s vibe. I still think it’s an incredible accomplishment. What is it like coming home from Korea?

Landon: Yeah, nah it’s good. We did ok. We did better than most teams in the past, but we still felt we could of done better. That’s the way it goes you know?

Carson: So you land here back in the States and is there a parade, are they throwing stuff, is there a ticker, is there… what’s going on? Is there a big party?

Landon: There are parties for sure. But it’s good people are noticing us and it’s also kinda dangerous cuz you go into restaurants and stuff and people you think are from Mexico or Portugal you gotta be careful because you don’t know what’s going in your food, maybe so…

[Audience laughs]

Carson: Right. Wasn’t there a story about a soccer player who kicked the ball in the wrong goal in another country and they like…

Landon: Killed him? That was in America, yeah ’94. That was in Colombia.

Carson: Now how come the passion around soccer exists so prominent elsewhere except in the States? It doesn’t make any sense.

Landon: Well we’re changing that right?

Carson: Are we?

Landon: Yeah!

[Audience cheers]

Carson: I think one reason… I played soccer for like 10 years growing up as a lot of people did our age, but they stopped.

Landon: You didn’t play soccer. You play soccer?

Carson: Yeah I played soccer.

Landon: All right.

Carson: Back when we had oranges at halftime.

Landon: Oranges. We still do that.

Carson: We still do that?

Landon: Yeah.

Carson: You wear shin guards?

Landon: Yeah. Definitely.

Carson: You wear a cup?

[Audience giggles]

Landon: Um, you know what. They say soccer players are so well, uh, hung that they don’t need them.

[Audience “ohhhh”]

Landon: Haha.

Carson: Surely there is a punchline here somewhere.

[Audience laughs]

Carson: Let me ask you this. Have you ever been to the bars here in New York in the middle of the night. They’re…

Landon: I’m 20, man.

Carson: You don’t have a fake id?

[Audience laughs]

Carson: I’ll get you one. I’ll get you a GOOD one.

Landon: All right.

Carson: So here’s the deal like you can watch a Celtics-Rangers game. They have people internationally go crazy for this. As American does it make you want to play overseas more because their enthusiasm is better than ours?

Landon: Yeah, but that’s scary though man. If you do well, they’re cheering for you, but if not you could, like you said, get shot. So, I think I like our crowd here and I like that they’re behind us, but anything beyond that…

Carson: And how about the chicks? They dig the soccer player right?

Landon: Maybe. Sometimes.

Carson: Do you have a lady friend?

Landon: I do not.

Carson: I’ve seen you do that talk show circuit now.

Landon: It’s crazy.

Carson: Yeah, what is that like for you?

Landon: It’s awesome man. This by far is the best one even though it’s at 2 in the morning.

Carson: Thank you brother.

Landon: You know what our games were on at like 2:30 in the morning too so we have that in common.

Carson: Um… soccer players have this image of being athletic and there’s tons of endurance and strong. I read that one of your favorite groups was Boyz II Men.

Landon: Yup.

Carson: So do this with me for a second.

Landon: Uh-oh.

Carson: Say it’s 30 minutes before the game with Germany or something and you’re getting pumped up. You’re going to that place that all athletes do and you’re there and you’re listening to this.

[Plays Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love To You”, Audience laughs]

Carson: I’m gonna go down that field. I’m gonna kick the shit out of that ball. How is it pumping you up?

[Landon takes a deep breath from laughing so much]

Landon: Oh man, you’re killing me. It calms me down, man. You get so excited.

Carson: Is that the idea? I genuinely want to learn about this.

Landon: All right, genuinely, you get so excited sometimes that it calms you down.

Carson: Ok, so you don’t want to go out there and be a maniac. You wanna get focused and…

Landon: I don’t wanna go out there and make love to anyone on the soccer field.

[Audience laughs]

Carson: All right, I think I shoulda just gone to that. Let’s talk about the sport. We have a few issues with soccer or maybe I do. 90 minutes in a game there might maybe be one goal. It seems like an awfully long time.

Landon: You think so?

Carson: Is there anything we can do? Shorten the field?

Landon: Sure why not! Make the goal bigger maybe.

Carson: You’ve heard that one before. These are like bad jokes that you’ve heard.

Landon: No, not even.

Carson: I’ve got a couple better ones. Maybe we just play with 3 balls, one of which is explosive.

[Audience laughs]

Landon: That might work.

Carson: How about this? During the soccer game we release a man-eating lion. Now that would get the Americans into it, right?

Landon: Where do you get this stuff?

Carson: I dunno. We’re just goofing off. Cheerleaders. Any cheerleaders?

Landon: Uh, some things, yeah. That’s nice when you’re warming up, you’re out there and you see them. Gives you adrenaline boost.

Carson: Cuz we always see these crazy fans on TV in these goofy hats. That’s like the closest thing we see to a cheerleader.

Landon: My grandma’s got one of those hats.

[Picture of fans on TV, Audience laughs]

Landon: Oh you got that?

Carson: By the way that is NOT your grandmother right there.

Landon: Oh ok. Haha. I hope not.

Carson: Hehe. Those are just the fans. Anyways, what do you do now? Go back to…

Landon: L.A. tonight.

Carson: This is a whirlwind now. You just came to New York and with all this press and stuff is there anything you hope to get out of this? You wanna, I dunno, maybe parlay this into an acting thing or endorsements?

Landon: An acting thing? I dunno about that. Hopefully endorsements. That helps, but we’re just having fun and it’s for soccer. We want soccer to grow and we think it is.

Carson: I think so too. And so what, you go back to San Jose now and what does the rest of the season look like?

Landon: All the way through September we got our season so right now we just keep going and we’ve got a lot of games to play.

Carson: All right, good for you, man. Well, thanks for hanging with us.

Landon: Cool, man.

Carson: You’re a good sport. Appreciate it.

[Audience cheers]

Carson: Landon Donovan everybody! Team USA. We’ll be right back with a performance from N.E.R.D. right after this.

[Carson hands Landon his bobblehead. Landon plays around with it.]

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