Landon Donovan

Soccer Player

By age 24 Landon Donovan had played in two World Cups, won three Major League Soccer titles, and had three times been named the U.S. player of the year. A speedy striker with a scorer's flair around the goal, Donovan was a teen phenom: he was first called up for the U.S. national team in 1999, at the age of 17, and the same year he signed with the prominent German club Bayer Leverkusen. The pairing was a poor one; he was loaned back to the U.S. and played professionally for the San Jose Earthquakes from 2001-2004, helping the team to MLS Cup wins in 2001 and 2003. After another awkward stint with Bayer Leverkusen in 2005, he returned to America and joined the Los Angeles Galaxy, leading them to the 2005 MLS Cup. Donovan starred on the 2002 United States team that reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup, and by the World Cup of 2006 he had become the best-known player on the American squad.

Extra credit: Donovan has a twin sister named Tristan... He has a tattoo of a hummingbird on the inside of his left wrist... He became engaged to actress Bianca Kajlich in 2005; Kajlich had recurring roles in the TV shows Dawson's Creek and Boston Public and co-starred in the 2002 film Halloween: Resurrection