Strange that it should take more than 60 matches to get to one real classic. Even the most exciting games of this World Cup – USA-Algeria, USA-Ghana, Ghana-Uruguay – didn’t have anything on this one. USA-Algeria was likely less than compelling, if you were a neutral, as Algeria (confusingly) played for a draw right up until the 91st minute; USA-Ghana was notable mostly for Ghana’s extra-time winner; and Ghana-Uruguay was only thrilling in the last minute of extra time (though the pain Ghana endured was enough for three or four World Cups.)

But this one – wow. Start with the absolute strike of the tournament from Giovanni van Bronckhorst in the 18th-minute, an unsaveable 35-yard rocket from the left flank, off the right post and in. Seriously, go over to ESPN and find a replay. Two keepers could hardly have stopped it, and it took place from across the field.

Then add in Diego Forlan‘s equalizer, another dagger from the Uruguayan, this one in the 41st. It was Forlan’s fourth goal of the tournament, yet another scored from long range, and this from a guy who used to be unable to score from four feet. Stunning.

And then, the second half. Wesley Sneijder scores with twenty minutes to play to put Holland up again, another goal from the suddenly-prolific midfielder, and one I’m still convinced was offside. Discussion should rage; the ball nearly hit Robin van Persie, who was offside and in the goalkeeper’s line of sight, which strikes me as “interfering with play,” but was somehow ignored by the referee.

Arjen Robben scored three minutes later and that looked to be it – but then Maxi Pereira slammed a shot home with two of three extra minutes off the clock to make it 3-2. Surely there wasn’t time for another goal… was there?

93:00 ticked by. No whistle from the ref, except to (confusingly) card Mark van Bommel. Uruguay desperately swung the ball into the box. Holland had to make three game-saving lunges.

94:00 ticked past. Still no whistle. There was no time-wasting, no substitutions, just the goal, and somehow four minutes of the maximum three minutes of stoppage time had elapsed, and still the referee allowed Uruguay to throw the ball into the Netherlands penalty area. van Persie had to make two defensive plays. Still no whistle.

I think the referee must have just been caught up in the drama. I know I was.

Finally the ref signaled the end of the game. There were minor fisticuffs, of course. A game that tense couldn’t end with mere handshakes.

Two laser strikes, one controversial goal, an extra-time prayer, followed by two incredibly tense minutes that probably shouldn’t have happened – how exciting can you get?

Tomorrow, Germany-Spain. Can Miroslav Klose tie Ronaldo – or surpass him – as the World Cup’s greatest-ever goalscorer? Can somebody other than David Villa score for Spain? Can the Spanish live up to expectations? Can the Germans be stopped?

The World Cup quarterfinals start today, and with the USA out, I’m not sure who I should be pulling for. Had they not lost, it would have been England, under the theory of “I would hope they would cheer for us, in the same situation”; this makes little sense, so let’s nonsensically examine the other contenders.

Uruguay – They haven’t been this far since 1970, after winning the Cup in 1930 and 1950, so they’ve got the underdog thing going for them. That, and that they have Diego Forlan, is the sum total of my knowledge about the Uruguayans. This does not form a good basis for fandom.

Ghana – Knocked the USA out of the last two World Cups. Um, no. (Yes, I am bitter. Are you surprised?)

Germany – I have some German heritage, and they might be my favorite team to watch in the tournament. That said, as I said to someone before the England-Germany match: “I can’t root for Germany. They tried to kill everybody’s grandpa.”

Brazil – Sure, and then I’ll cheer for the Yankees, too. I can’t wait to see where LeBron signs so I know what team I’m a fan of, too! To sum up: No.

Argentina – Very good, but they have Diego Maradona for a coach, and Maradona is a first-class idiot. Plus Lionel Messi scored four goals in a half against Arsenal. I am not above pettiness, either.

Spain – Half of the Barcelona team is on the Spanish national team, which makes them immediately annoying, especially Xavi. Plus they won’t play Cesc Fabregas. BOOOO!

Paraguay – Their snoozefest with Japan set soccer back ten years. No thanks.

So that leaves… The Netherlands! Allow me to enumerate the things I like about Holland:

• Yes, I know why they wear orange jerseys despite their country’s colors being red, white, and blue. It still makes no sense. I love this.
• Bert Blyleven is from there.
• Robin Van Persie threw a tantrum after being substituted last week, and it’s always fun to cheer for a team that might devolve into intrasquad fisticuffs during a match.
• Rafael Van Der Faart.
• Dennis Bergkamp was Dutch. He also refused to fly on airplanes, earning himself the nickname “The Non-Flying Dutchman,” which is so wonderfully perfect that you’d swear I made it up.
• They do tend to play fast-paced, scintillating soccer, and any of about eight guys could pop up and score the goal of the World Cup at any moment. Or they could go through to the semifinals thanks to an own goal and somebody scoring with their knee. You never know what you’ll get with them.

So count me aboard the Dutch bandwagon! I’ll just get out my bracket and find out who they’re playing next here…

Brazil. This morning.

Oh, balls.

Spain and Paraguay won, thus completing the quarterfinals, and also setting up a statistic that has the USA rather shamed: of the eight group winners, only one failed to advance to the quarterfinals. Take a bow, America – we’re special!

This got me thinking about what needs to happen between now and Brazil 2014 – besides the USA successfully qualifying again, of course – for the Americans to be in the quarterfinals and beyond. Here’s my top five things:

1. Tim Howard has to stay healthy and stay effective.

Howard will be 35 by the time the next World Cup rolls around, but right now, the crystal ball says that’s all we’ve got. Brad Guzan may challenge for that spot, but first he has to get a few games at Aston Villa (or elsewhere) to prove that he’s actually got what it takes. Brad Friedel at Villa retired from the national team early, but he’s still getting it done in England at age 39, so – as long as he stays healthy – I see no reason that Howard can’t be back in 2014, if he wants to be.

2. Jozy Altidore has to learn to be a real striker.

He’s shown flashes, of course – the hat trick in qualifying springs to mind – and he’s just 20. And yet, Eddie Johnson was just 20 at one point, too, and so was DaMarcus Beasley. Altidore hasn’t showed any real nose for goal for his club teams, either, scoring just once in 28 games at Hull City last year.

An American striker hasn’t scored at the World Cup since Brian McBride in 2002, and apart from the goal-poaching ability of Herculez Gomez and possible developments on the Edson Buddle front, the cupboard is looking a bit bare beyond Altidore. America needs a legitimate threat up front; it can’t continue to count on Landon Donovan, grit, and shinned-in goals from corner kicks to score.

3. The team needs to develop, or possibly adopt, some new defenders.

Like the American defense, I’m at a loss, and have no idea what to do at the back of the team. All of the American defenders are the wrong side of 30 (Jay DeMerit, Carlos Bocanegra, Steve Cherundolo) or demonstrably useless (Jonathan Spector, Jonathan Bornstein, Clarence Goodson, Heath Pearce, Chad Marshall). The jury’s still somewhat out on Oguchi Onyewu, but he had horrible World Cups in 2006 and 2010, and still is mostly living off his manhandling of Jared Borgetti six years ago.

I guess the only hope is that the USA can cobble together four mediocre defenders and somehow teach them to be a disciplined unit. Failing that, I say we forcibly naturalize young defenders from other countries.

4. The team needs to hire a new coach.

If you want a summary, there’s two easy words that can explain this: Ricardo Clark. He wasn’t exactly working with top-notch clay all of the time, but Bob Bradley has a record of curious and confusing team selection, which has been combined with some underachieving from his team, which means it’s probably time for the end of the Bradley era. The Americans made a mistake by letting Bruce Arena hang on until 2006 after his success in 2002; the country may be better off this time by moving on to a new coach for the next four-year cycle, rather than letting the current one stick around too long.

If they could get a coach that begins with discipline and tactical acumen, it’d go a long way towards solving problem #3, too.

5. Somebody besides Landon Donovan needs to step up as a world-class outfield player.

I’ve spent plenty of time criticizing Donovan, but he’s truly the best non-goalkeeper this country has ever produced. That said, he’s currently the only one at that level. Clint Dempsey probably won’t get there, nor will some of the other old hands (DeMarcus Beasley comes to mind), but the USA needs more players who, on any given day, can step up and be a force. Michael Bradley may be the team’s best hope. Some other young midfielders – Benny Feilhaber, Jose Torres, Sacha Kljestan, Maurice Edu – have shown very occasional flashes of being special, as well.

Donovan went through his lost-in-the woods period around the 2006 World Cup. We can only hope that one of those other players, or Altidore, or someone else, can step up in 2014.

The World Cup, for all of its bluster, is basically about setting up the quarterfinals.

Only the top team in each group was seeded for this tournament, along with hosts South Africa. Each top seed is made to go through the group stage, but the bracket is set up so that theoretically, the winner of each group will play another group winner in the quarterfinals.

It’s not that easy, of course. Italy collapsed in the group stage and went out. England failed to win its group and had to play Germany in its first knockout round game. South Africa was only nominally seeded, and failed to qualify themselves. But the other five seeded teams – in order, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, and Argentina – won their groups, and four are already through to the quarterfinals, with Spain to play tomorrow.

Already the talk is all about two of the quarterfinals, with Germany set to take on Argentina, and Brazil slated to face the Netherlands. Those two matchups represent the four best teams in the tournament so far, and frankly, it’s the way the organizers meant this tournament to go.

Tomorrow, Spain also plays Portugal, a knockout round match that looks drool-worthy on paper (which probably means a boring goalless draw and penalties.) And then, another less classic matchup… Paraguay against Japan.

Really, aren’t those the interesting matchups left in this tournament? The moment the draw was complete, you could have predicted Germany-Argentina and Brazil-Netherlands quarterfinals. But who could have seen Uruguay-Ghana coming, or a theoretical Paraguay-Portugal matchup? Spain may yet make it through, but either Uruguay or Ghana is going to play in a World Cup semifinal. Uruguay hadn’t even been to the quarterfinals in forty years. Ghana qualified for the first time ever in 2006.

So yes, there will be some classic quarterfinals, and yes, nobody’s really looking forward to Japan-Spain or Ghana and Uruguay or whatever may happen. But frankly, I think the latter might be the most interesting matches left in the tournament.

The weekend links are up at RandBall, and of course, there’s plenty of World Cup content. Just over two hours until the match today. I’m ready for anything.

The USA, in the end, exactly met everyone’s expectations – through to the knockout round and no further. The favorable way the bracket set up, and the wave of emotion following the way the Americans qualified, had us hopeful that better things were possible. In the end, though, this was exactly the team we knew we had.

Throughout qualifying, the USA seemed determined to play from behind. Yet again, they went behind early, allowing a sixth-minute strike by Ghana. We’ve seen a team with a propensity for disastrous defensive errors – and Ricardo Clark and Jay DeMerit combined on that first goal to turn nothing into something for Ghana, and DeMerit and Carlos Bocanegra allowed a goal early in extra time in the same way. Both of Ghana’s goals came out of nothing, and really, those were the only two chances the Africans had. As it so often has, the game came down to whether Tim Howard could bail out his defenders – and the keeper was not at his best on Saturday.

We knew those defensive flaws were there. We knew that the USA had never found someone to play next to Michael Bradley in midfield; Clark lost the ball that led to the first goal, picked up a stupid yellow card two minutes later, and was substituted half an hour into the match, with coach Bob Bradley basically admitting he’d made a mistake starting Clark. Maurice Edu was the best in this tournament in that midfield role, but he’d hardly made an impression in qualifying, any more than Jose Torres or Sasha Kljestan or Benny Feilhaber or anyone else the USA tried there.

Up front, too, the Americans never really found someone to partner Jozy Altidore, who was good as a target man, but unable to find the back of the net. All three players who did score – Bradley, Clint Dempsey, and Landon Donovan – scored from midfield. Robbie Findley did a lot of running but hardly had a sniff of goal; Edson Buddle and Herculez Gomez did very little when coming on late.

All these problems we knew – but we still got our hopes up. After Wednesday, anything seemed possible.

And now, the hardest part – waiting four more years for another shot. Donovan, the best player America has ever produced, will be 32 years old in 2014; Howard, the first-choice goalkeeper, will be 35. Much of the rest of the current team – with the notable exceptions of Bradley and Altidore – will be into their thirties by the time the next World Cup rolls around. A new batch of players will need to step up, by then. Someone will need to score besides Dempsey and Donovan. Someone will need to plug the holes.

We knew that this day was probably coming. We had hoped it wouldn’t come quite so soon. And now, we wait for Brazil, four years from now, for another shot.

After the first set of group games were completed, I ranked all 32 teams at the World Cup. Looking back now, of course, I see that I was an idiot. North Korea at #16? Switzerland at #4? France as high as #21?

Now, of course, all of the group games are done, and so it’s time to hand out the awards. Sixteen teams remain in the knockout round, but others deserve recognition, like the following:

• The Leaky Sieve Award (Defensive Incompetence): Take a bow North Korea! You’re headed for the coal mines, as the only team to concede more than six goals. Having let in an astonishing even dozen, you’ve also taken the award for worst goal differential, a robust -11. In fact, you’re the worst team at the World Cup since Saudi Arabia in 2002, which let in twelve but scored none.
• The Mercury-Redstone I Award (Offensive Incompetence): This award is shared by Algeria and Honduras, both of which failed to score a goal at the World Cup and ended up with a single point apiece. Nice trip to South Africa that they got out of the deal, though, I guess.
• The Departing in Shame Award (Overall Failure): North Korea is your winner here, but a special mention of Cameroon, the only other team to lose all three of its group matches. The Indomitable Lions do win an award for the best team nickname, however, and to be totally fair, they lost each match by only one goal.
• The Stan Gable Award (Beating Up on the Weak): Portugal wins this one for their epic performance in Group G: Scoreless draw with Ivory Coast, scoreless draw with Brazil… 7-0 beating of North Korea.
• The Chastity Belt Award (Defensive Excellence): A tie between Uruguay and Portugal, both of which allowed zero goals in their three games. To end this paragraph, you may write your own coarse “tougher to score on than…” jokes, if you like.
• The “It Happens To Every Team and It’s Not A Big Deal” Award (Peaking Too Early): Slovenia and Switzerland won their first group games – and then failed to qualify for the knockout round.
• The Bloodied But Unbowed (But Still Going Home) Award (Unbeaten but unlucky): Those poor Kiwis. New Zealand didn’t lose any of its three matches, but didn’t win any either, and heads out of the competition.

In a way, we’ve now played the final qualifying round for the 2010 World Cup. The USA have now survived groups that have eliminated Barbados, Guatemala, Cuba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Algeria, and Slovenia. We’re down to the real tournament: 16 teams, no second chances, and no excuses.

It starts tomorrow. You know it’ll be exciting.

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.

Dear anyone who can’t understand why I’m so nuts about sports:

This is why.

This is why you pick a team and follow their every move. This is why you live and die with all of their successes and failures, why you make their foibles yours, why you say “we” and “our.” This is why you endure heartbreak that seems like it can never be topped. This is why you put yourself out there, again and again, daring to take the results of a game personally.

This is why you’re a fan, because sometimes, Landon Donovan pops up in injury time, with the USA out of the World Cup, to score a goal to send them on to the next round.

You become a fan because sometimes, every so often, something happens that sends you hopping around the room, delirious with joy, screaming words that have never before existed in any language, hugging anyone you can reach, running, running, just running to express your joy.

Real life, sadly, has few opportunities for this. But sports – if you’re willing to put yourself out there, sometimes, this happens.

What a game. What an epic, epic game. What joy. What heartbreak and then, what joy.

Links to crowd reactions to Landon Donovan’s winner in the USA-Algeria match are now trickling in – from everywhere. Below, a few links (many of which came from the Twitter feed of Bill Simmons).

I love that, across the country, people had the same reaction: the temporary madness of utter joy, then random hugging, then chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” as loudly as possible.

I know it’s not in any way comparable, but for those of us born post-1980, this is the closest we’ve ever come to our own Miracle on Ice.

I know that this is about one-tenth as good as that, but still. What a day. What a game. What a goal.

UPDATE: Possibly the definitive version, set to the music from “Rudy.”