USA's lone star Landon Donovan unfazed by World Cup 2010

The USA captain may sense an upset in Saturday's World Cup 2010 game against England – but he's not letting on

The celebrity matrix doesn't function when it comes to football in the United States, where the average professional player is a nonentity and the global superstar has to sweat like a hod carrier in a spacesuit to get his fix of recognition. David Beckham has spent the last three years waving – or more accurately, drowning – in Hollywood with little discernible impact on the American psyche, so what hope can there possibly be for the members of the US national team?

The answer is not much, although there is one member of the star-spangled starting XI to face England in Rustenburg on Saturday who might turn a head or two were he to take a stroll down Sunset Boulevard. "Everywhere I go, someone might notice me and say something but it is not like my daily life is crazy," says Landon Donovan, the undoubted star – indeed, the only star – of the USA team. "I have the best of both worlds where I kind of get all the benefits of being a celebrity or being famous, but none of the downside, like there might be in England."

Donovan is a Los Angeles Galaxy team-mate of Beckham's and spent part of last season in this country with Everton, so he is well aware of what that downside might be; the daily scrutiny, the depressing obsession with Wag culture, the Photoshopped donkey ears. Win, lose or draw, the USA captain will sleep easily on the eve of the game knowing that national ridicule does not await him and his team-mates. As he notes, the same cannot be said for Fabio Capello's boys.

"Of course there is more pressure on the English players. If we don't do well in the World Cup, people care for a little bit. But if England doesn't do well in the World Cup, it is absolutely devastating to their country, their families, to their people. I don't know if they look at it that way, but that's the reality."

Donovan is a small man and he speaks with a quiet, controlled politeness. But his minimal stage presence should not be mistaken for a lack of self-confidence. He was identified at an early age as an outstanding footballer and his talents, like a rare plant, were lovingly nurtured and developed by his parents and, latterly, US Soccer.