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.”

Today at the World Cup was the final games in Group A and B. In the morning, Mexico backed into the knockout round despite losing to Uruguay, thanks to South Africa not making up three more goals on goal difference. In the afternoon, Argentina torpedoed Greece’s hopes, while a South Korean draw with Nigeria was enough to see the former through.

Only Nigeria provided much excitement. Had the Nigerians grabbed a late winner in their 2-2 draw with South Korea, they could have placed second in Group B, despite entering Tuesday with zero points. The “Super Eagles” took an early lead, but South Korea scored on either side of halftime to go ahead. And then, around the one-hour mark, came perhaps the miss of the tournament: Yakubu, open three yards in front of goal with the goalkeeper out of position, needing only to stab the ball into the yawning net to tie the score.

He missed, of course. Somehow, he redirected the pass from his left wide of the left post, which you or I couldn’t have done even if we had tried.

He later scored a penalty to make the game 2-2, and the Nigerians came close to a winner in the final minutes, so perhaps his miss will be forgotten. Yet for me, the look on his face after his miss – a combination of disbelief, embarrassment, and laughter at the hand he’d been dealt by fate – is so far the enduring image of this World Cup. To come so close, and to have glory within your grasp, and have it slip through – in a way, that’s what sports are all about.

In honor of that: an old clip with some of the worst misses of all time. (An updated version would include Yakubu, methinks.)

Kind of a predictable day in South Africa today – Portugal slaughtered North Korea, Chile beat ten-man Switzerland, and Spain rolled over Honduras – so instead, a few essays.

The FIFA Disciplinary Committee needs to get it together.

The committee only has the power “for rectifying obvious errors in the referee’s disciplinary decisions, for example in the case of mistaken identity,” according to FIFA.com. Yet every match contains refereeing mistake after refereeing mistake. Kaká will miss Brazil’s next match after his sending off, even though his second yellow was due to the biggest dive of the competition. Robbie Findley will miss the USA’s final group match after being carded for deliberate handball on a ball that hit him in the face. These are ridiculous decisions, but since they don’t fall under the purview of the disciplinary committee, they haven’t been overturned.

In the same vein, I wonder when instant replay will finally make an appearance at the World Cup, if for nothing else than to review goals. We’ve yet to see a “did the ball cross the line or not?” moment at this World Cup, but leaving this decision to referees and linesmen – none of whom could possibly be in position to call this as well as video could – is silly. (And you wonder if there’s a way to prevent Luis Fabiano’s double-handball goal as well.)

Speaking of Fabiano – where’s the outrage?

France defeated Ireland in qualifying thanks to a blatant handball from Thierry Henry. (Never mind that Ireland benefited from a handball of their own in qualifying, against Georgia.) Now, Fabiano scores in the actual tournament, handling the ball twice on the way to his goal – and all I heard were a few “perhaps a hint of a handball there” chuckles from commentators. No one has castigated Fabiano. No one has labeled Brazil a bunch of cheaters.

Why not?

John Terry is my least favorite player of the World Cup

I have always hated Didier Drogba. So, too, Cristiano Ronaldo, the A-Rod of soccer. I have great distaste for several Barcelona players in Spain’s side, who continue their public attempts to get Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas to switch to the Catalan side.

And yet, John Terry is my least favorite by a wide margin. Perhaps I hardly need remind you that Terry not only carried on a four-month affair with the significant other of club and England teammate Wayne Bridge, he got her pregnant, then paid for the end of the pregnancy. (Terry is married with two kids, by the way.) He was stripped of the England captaincy for that, but still went to South Africa with the team.

Now, Terry – a big part of the team that’s scored once in two matches, with two draws to show for it – led an publicly-conducted, no-followers, dressing-room coup against manager Fabio Capello, attempting to shift the blame onto the manager. (Reminder: England, with Terry but without Capello, failed to qualify for Euro 2008.)

I cannot imagine a player being more hateable than John Terry. What a ludicrous human being.

Three quick essays on Sunday’s matches at the World Cup…

Brazil 3:1 Ivory Coast

Three talking points from this one.

1. Kaka was sent off in this one, thanks to one of the worst dives you’ll ever see. Kader Keita, the Ivory Coast forward, ran into Kaka, whose elbow therefore hit Keita in the midsection. Because Keita ran into him, remember. Keita then went down, grabbing his face – which again, had not been touched – thus earning Kaka a second yellow card and a sending off. I am sad, not for Kaka, but for soccer.
2. Luis Fabiano scored what originally I thought was the goal of the tournament, somehow working the ball over and around three defenders in the penalty area before booting the ball into the net. Replays showed that two of those touches were fairly obvious handballs. Oh, replay, you have ruined my youthful wonder.
3. Brazil has two wins, have qualified for the next round, and yet there are still those talking about how they have not played well. How dangerous is Brazil?

Italy 1:1 New Zealand

Three talking points from this one:

1. If I happened to be a New Zealand fan, I would have been pretty peeved about commentator Ian Darke‘s call of the Kiwis’ seventh-minute goal. He misidentified goalscorer Shane Smeltz as Winston Reid, despite – and I wish to be sensitive here – the fact that Smeltz is white and Reid is black.
2. I think we could all enjoy the sight of Fabio Cannavaro falling over and thus directing the ball directly to Smeltz for the goal. (We are, however, surprised that Cannavaro didn’t stay down clutching his face for five minutes.)
3. After saving a draw against Slovakia for their first-ever World Cup point, this draw is surely New Zealand’s greatest-ever World Cup result. I’m quite pleased for them. (Not least because if they pulled off their first-ever World Cup win against Paraguay next week, they’d be into the knockout round.)

Slovakia 0:2 Paraguay

Three talk… no, I don’t have them in me. I didn’t see this match; the highlights jumped directly from Paraguay’s 27th-minute goal to their 86th-minute goal. They also showed only one Slovakian shot on net, which didn’t come until the 93rd minute. This one must have been a doozy to sit through.

Monday, though, has all the makings of an exciting day. Portugal tries to beat the pants off North Korea, while Switzerland and Chile battle for control of Group H, and Spain must win against Honduras to keep pace.

I wrote plenty last night about referee Koman Coulibaly, but here’s the latest from ESPN. This week’s Weekend Links at RandBall also covers Coulibaly in some detail, mostly to ruminate on what might be an appropriate punishment.

A few notes on today’s games:

Denmark 2:1 Cameroon

The Danes got the win, Cameroon is going home, and both teams should be fairly embarrassed with how they played. The highlights were littered with horrible giveaways – I’m talking things like “keeper, apparently blinded by the sun, accidentally passes the ball directly to opposing forward.” Dennis Rommedahl set one up and scored one for the Danes, who mostly got better goalkeeping than did Cameroon (even though the Danish defense might have made more horrible, horrible errors.)

Cameroon is the first team eliminated this year, and the Danish win also made The Netherlands the first team to advance to the knockout round. (That Cameroon-Holland game next week should be a real doozy.)

Holland 1:0 Japan

It’s funny – as I mentioned, the Dutch have two wins, something only one other team has managed from their first two games, they’re through to the next round, and yet all anybody can talk about is how disappointingly they’ve played. We’ve all come to expect glorious, entertaining soccer from the Oranje, and they’ve scored two goals along with a Danish own goal so far. Everyone’s so disappointed. (I suspect no one from Holland is too concerned about qualification, though.)

Ghana 1:1 Australia

The Aussies finally scored, with Brett Holman putting them in front after just 11 minutes, but they can’t seem to stay on the field. Tim Cahill was sent off in their match against Germany, and Harry Kewell got the gate after just 24 minutes against Ghana, with a deliberate handball on the line causing the dismissal. Ghana scored the resulting penalty to tie it, but couldn’t take advantage of their extra man to get a winner, mostly thanks to the goalkeeping of Mark Schwarzer. And frankly, the Aussies could have grabbed their own winner; they may even have had the better of play after Kewell left the field.

Group D, then, is incredibly muddled; any two of the four teams, with Germany and Serbia, still could go through to the knockout round (though the Aussies need a win, some help, and a wheelbarrow full of goals to do so.) In Group E, Denmark needs a win against Japan to go through; a draw or a loss will put Japan in the knockout round.

It’s all so complicated, really. (I think we’ll all feel better if Italy loses to New Zealand tomorrow, which would frankly be hilarious.)

Now that the match has been over for nearly twelve hours, I’ve finally calmed down enough to talk about USA-Slovenia. It was… disappointing, for lack of a better term.

Koman Coulibaly. We might as well start there, for the discussion of this match starts with he, the Malian referee. All match, the USA would swing the ball into the box, only to have play stopped for some mystical, invisible foul that had been committed. The disallowed USA winner was not the first.

But that’s the talking point, because it should have counted. I’ve seen the replay a few (hundred) times now, and here’s what I notice:

1. Maurice Edu scores, of course.
2. Michael Bradley is locked in a bear hug by a Slovenian defender.
3. Josy Altidore is being held.
4. Clint Dempsey is thrown to the ground.

Perhaps FIFA would like to go back and give us three penalties? (We would settle for the goal.)

My greatest wish is that I had not heard the whistle go before Edu scored. I knew what that whistle blast meant, I knew the goal wouldn’t count; I regret hearing that, because had I not heard the whistle, I would have – for just a moment – felt that wonderful soaring late-winner feeling. There is no better feeling, people. Soccer is designed for that feeling. That feeling is why people become fanatics for the game.

All of that said, of course, it never should have come to that. Oguchi Onyewu‘s ridiculously bad defending made it 2-0 at halftime. I wrote before the England match that the USA was good for two comically bad defensive errors per match; I’ve been right on the money so far. Slovenia got two goals to show for it, England got a goal plus a breakaway that Emile Heskey hit straight at Tim Howard. Presumably, either Algeria will have to fail to take their chances, or the US will have to win 3-2.

I hardly want to think about Wednesday’s match against Algeria: win, or (probably) go home. There are unlikely scenarios where a draw works out, such as if England lose against Slovenia, but – even after the Three Lions drew with Algeria – it’s still hard to imagine this happening.

Still, on the flip side, it’s easy for the USA going into the match: just win. That’s all. Victory or failure. No shades of gray.

To sum up: to be denied the clear winner was disappointing. To draw is both frustrating and miraculous in equal measure; to fall behind was awful, to come back from the dead, tremendous. We live to fight another day, and I suppose, that’s all we can ask.

We’re fully into the second go-round for most teams – which means that the groups are beginning to separate into the haves and the have-nots. With this in mind, a look at today’s biggest losers at the World Cup.

Third Runner-Up: That Guy With The Flag

Mexico beat France 2-0, but their first goal was a good yard offside, a violation somehow ignore d by the linesman. I’m not saying that France deserved to win, but now Mexico’s a draw away from round 2. Given that their co-leader in Group A, Uruguay, is in the same boat, and the two teams play each other in their final group game… what’s the betting on a miraculous 0-0 draw?

Second Runner-Up: South Korea

Got waxed 4-1 by Argentina, which is no shame – the Argentines were awesome – but does present a problem in a group that could end up tied. The loss is bad, but losing three goals in the goal differential is even worse.

First Runner-Up: France

Failed to score a goal or win a game in their first two. Now, would need to beat South Africa and have either Uruguay or Mexico lose, plus get some help on the goal differential. In other words: Bye-bye, France!

The winner of the losers… Sani Katia!

Katia is the Nigerian midfielder who, in a moment of pure, unadulterated stupidity, got himself sent off for kicking a Greece player in full view of everyone in the stadium. Nigeria was leading 1-0 at the time; they lost 2-1 after playing most of the match down a man. Nigeria is now pointless, on the bottom of Group B, and in need of a minor miracle to qualify for the second round. If they’d even got a draw, they probably would have gone through with a win against South Korea; now, they’re stuck at the bottom of their group.

Tomorrow morning, the USA takes on Slovenia in what is a truly pivotal match for the Americans. In a lot of ways, it’s like a CONCACAF qualifying match; the USA will have more firepower and should win, but to do so, will have to break down a defensively determined team (and manage to avoid their own lapses) to get the job done.

Does it surprise you that I’m already so nervous I can hardly speak?

It’s Day 6, and every team has played at least once – so what better time to rank the teams 1 through 32?

1. Germany – It’s not even close. So far, they’ve put on the only dominating performance of the tournament. They were the only team to score even three goals in their first game, and they put four past wildly overmatched Australia.
2. Argentina – Only an acrobatic Nigerian goalkeeper held them to a single goal.
3. South Korea – Sure, Greece was terrible, but the Koreans dominated.
4. Switzerland – Beat a Spain team that was picked by many to win the tournament. Switzerland still hasn’t allowed a World Cup goal since 1994 (though they assisted themselves in that by failing to qualify in 1998 and 2002).
5. Chile – Overran Honduras, but couldn’t finish.
6. Brazil – Had trouble with North Korea, but showed flashes of their expected brilliance.
7. The Netherlands – Got the win over Denmark, but needed a Danish own goal to send them on their way.
8. England – Probably deserved better than the point they got. (Thanks again, Robert Green!)
9. Japan – Beat Cameroon through sheer scrappiness.
10. Ghana – Needed a late penalty to scrape three points against Serbia.
11. Portugal – Offensive strategy: Cristiano Ronaldo dives, followed by free kicks. I hate them.
12. Ivory Coast – Drew with Portugal. Everyone expected more entertainment from them.
13. Spain – Were denied a draw with Switzerland via the post and about eighty missed chances.
14. Nigeria – Playing Argentina to open the tournament is a tough job. Staying within 1-0 is respectable.
15. Uruguay – Admittedly, wouldn’t have been this high, except for their 3-0 win over South Africa in their second game.
16. North Korea – Lost to Brazil, may not win a match – but they could give both Portugal and the Ivory Coast problems. (Disclaimer: I am required to mention here that they are tools of a horrible fascist regime.)
17. United States – Got the draw they wanted against England. (One more time: thanks, Robert Green!)
18. Mexico – Held to a draw by South Africa, but possibly still the favorite in Group A.
19. Paraguay – Gah.
20. Italy – Double gah.
21. France – Triple… you get the picture.
22. Denmark – Lost to The Netherlands; scored the strangest own goal ever, as one defender sliced a clearance off of another’s back and into the net. With Japan and Cameroon in the group, still a chance to qualify from Group E.
23. Slovenia – Three points, but mostly due to an error by the Algerian goalkeeper. (Still, on track to qualify if they can get a result against the USA on Friday.)
24. Serbia – Unlucky to lose to Ghana.
25. Cameroon – The “boy, they should have been better” team of the tournament. Contrived to lose to Japan, which makes you wonder what else they might contrive to do.
26. New Zealand – Got a late draw against Slovakia. The feel-good story of the tournament, really.
27. Slovakia – Bet they’re not happy to drop points to New Zealand.
28. Honduras – If Chile could finish, they would have lost 5-0.
29. Algeria – Lost to Slovenia. With England and the USA left to play, staring way, way uphill at qualification.
30. South Africa – I admit, I wouldn’t have ranked them this low, except that they got whupped by Uruguay in their second game.
31. Australia – Positively spanked by Germany. Still could qualify, but getting beat 4-0 in your first match does not breed confidence.
32. Greece – I swore to avoid their matches because they were boring. I didn’t know they’d be terrible, too.

For another opinion on the rankings (though we’re in the same boat), check out the always-good Grant Wahl at si.com.