I spent Wednesday watching Landon Donovan score. I saw it live, I replayed it on the DVR a good two dozen times after the match was over, and pretty much throughout the day, whenever I had a free moment, I’d flip over to the clip and listen to Ian Darke’s call:

“Howard, gratefully claims it, distribution – brilliant. Landon Donovan, there are things on here for the USA, can they do it here? Cross, and Dempsey is denied again, AND DONOVAN HAS SCORED, OH, CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? GOAL, GOAL USA! CERTAINLY THROUGH! OH, IT’S INCREDIBLE! You could not write a script like this!”

Wednesday night and Thursday, I spent watching the reactions to the goal. The post below this one has most of the links, including the definitive version, set to the music from “Rudy.”

Over the last 48 hours, I’ve had to wipe my brimming-with-tears eyes more times than I can count. There are sports fans that go their entire lives without feeling like this, and now, in two decades, I’ve had three of these moments (the 1991 World Series, the 2002 NCAA hockey championship, and this). I follow an unconscionable number of teams, but still: I am lucky.

So naturally, on Thursday morning, when New Zealand was a goal down to Paraguay and searching for a late winner that would send them into the knockout round, I wanted them to find it. Italy, too, needed one more goal in injury time to go through to the knockout round. Even hateable, diving, preening, arrogant Italy – this feeling’s so rare, I wanted them to get a taste as well.

Of course, neither one got a late winner. The Azzurri had late chances that they couldn’t convert; the All Whites didn’t even come close.

That, I suppose, is the true reality of the World Cup. For every Landon Donovan, there’s a Daniele De Rossi. For every USA, there’s a New Zealand. I can’t imagine what it was like to be a Slovenian fan on Wednesday. They played over an hour without getting the equalizer that would have taken them through to the next round for sure – and then literally, at the moment the whistle went to give England the win, the USA scored the goal that knocked them out. Slap-bang, they went from in plus having a chance to score to out and going home. How cruel is that?

New Zealand came into the tournament without a World Cup point on its resume. They’ll go home Friday knowing they’re out of the tournament this time around without losing a match. Italy will know that they hit the side netting in injury time, and if that shot had been the other side of the post, they’d still be in South Africa. The South Africans have to watch the party continue in their front room while they sit in the back, watching on TV.

It’s harsh, this “reality” thing. How glad I am that I can wait until Saturday to deal with it again.