It is remarkable what Landon Donovan and the San Diego Loyal did on Wednesday night.
Leading the Phoenix Rising 3-1 in a game they needed to win to keep their playoff hopes alive, the Loyal walked off the field at the start of the second half, in support of openly gay teammate Collin Martin, who was called a homophobic slur by a Rising player.
It was, as colleague Doug McIntyre wrote, a textbook example of true allyship.
As we praise Donovan, the coach and co-founder of the USL’s Loyal, and those players — and they deserve all of it — we can’t lose sight of what led to them making that profound decision: soccer has a huge problem that isn’t going away.