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This is Rebecca Loew or Rebecca Loewa if you listen to Suboptimal Radio and you are listening to Men in Blazers on the NBC Sports Network.

It's unbelievable!

This is Roach. It's been a year of many projects.

But one I found among the most interesting was shooting behind the scenes as Landon Donovan's retirement approached.

The end product was a four-part documentary, The Finish Line, which I produce with my film partner, The Great John Hawk, for ESPN and Grantland, where it can still be seen.

I found the project fascinating because Landon's such an open, yet complex character, a man whose career straddled the time of radical transition for US soccer.

When he broke through as a fresh face bottle blonde in the early 2000s, the sports profile was very tree-falling and empty-forest.

He retired with America in full-thrall as the sport is ventured from the shadowed periphery towards the centre of the nation's sporting radar.

The second reason is that Landon's battle with depression throughout his career publicly wrestling with mental fatigue during and after his sabbatical.

I interviewed the Californian twice in that period, and honestly he sounded like hundreds of people I know who have lost their love for their job, and I was impressed by both his self-awareness and willingness to brave the derision of those who refused to sympathize with his predicament.

To honor his retirement, we thought it would be interesting to wear some of our Finish Line interviews.

For the record, I believe that with time, Landon will be appreciated for what he truly is, a human, complex, always intelligent, often breathtaking footballer, a genuine US goalthreat in an area in which American goalkeepers were more than normed, a home-loving player who suffered for his decision to remain in MLS, a reality which has become standard.

And an inventive spark on national teams built to persevere a divisive figure in the US who's admired in England, especially at Everton, and both feared and respected in Mexico.

Landon's a human being in an image-dominated age who knew exactly when he needed to take a break, a complicated man who excelled at a very simple game.

I've rarely met an athlete who talks more about the need to love what they're doing to be the best at it. You need to flow a happiness. Can you describe that feeling when it feels like for you when you have it?

I remember being very young and playing in youth tournaments and scoring goals in 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 people on the sidelines cheering, and I remember the visceral reaction I would have to that. It gives me goosebumps talking about it now.

And when people would cheer, there was this sense of acceptance, there was this sense of pride, obviously, there was this excitement inside me.

And so I've always carried that with me, and I've always just genuinely loved going out and playing.

And I promised myself that it if it ever got to a place where it wasn't that way, that I wouldn't do it.

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