LA Galaxy's Landon Donovan has admitted to regretting publicly criticizing teammate David Beckham.

The 28-year old USA international was critical of Beckham when the Englishman came to the club and took the captaincy and although he did not regret the words he said about the former Manchester United star, he did rue the way it came to be public knowledge.

"I realized - I'm not dumb - I realized either I could graciously relinquish the captaincy and make him feel immediately a part of our team or it was going to happen anyway,'' Donovan said in an interview on CenterStage. "I chose the higher road. At the time it didn't mean a whole lot to me not to wear the armband, but in retrospect I think I shouldn't have done it.

"I stand behind what I said; I regret the way I went about it. I wish I'd just been a man and told him to his face. Instead I said it to a reporter and it came back to haunt me. But at the end David was OK, and accepted my apology,'' Donovan told Kay. "When I shed away all the other stuff, the jealousy or the anger issues I had, I realized he's a very, very nice guy and we have a really good relationship.''