Asamoah Gyan celebrates with his teammates after Ghana reclaimed the lead in extra time.
Sean McElroy
“He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful.”
Don Delillo opens his novel Underworld with these words. That passage is about the “Shot Heard Round the World,” the bottom-of-the-ninth home run that won the New York Giants the NL Pennant over the crosstown Brooklyn Dodgers. It was the first nationally televised baseball game, but it was the radio call–the cry of “the Giants win the Pennant” three times in a row--that is remembered in history. Baseball entered the modern age with a miracle.
About ten years ago, I was offered a chance to go to South Africa to the 2010 World Cup. I would be able to see three knockout matches (including my beloved USMNT, if they happened to make it). It’s pretty hard to overstate just how much of a soccer fan I was then (I still am, but that’s for another day). But at that time, I co-hosted a radio show on soccer, in an age before podcasts were really a thing. When this opportunity presented itself, it would be the first time I had ever left the United States. I was pretty dang lucky, any way you put it.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on the 2010 World Cup a lot as we pass its tenth anniversary.
Donovan’s winner in Pretoria- and the dogpile that ensued- is a story that often dwarfs the heartache that came later.
Of course, like most American soccer fans, I remember where I was on June 23, 2010.
I sat on my couch, watching alone, a bit nervous for the solo travel that was to come, and absolutely screaming at the television. When Donovan scored, I quite literally couldn’t believe it. I watched the scoreboard without emotion, trying to keep a straight face while my hands shook, until I saw the zero click over to one. The gods of the four-letter television network, who for some reason I trusted in that moment, had given me permission to celebrate. We had made it, and we were through to the knockout stage of the greatest tournament in the world.
Four Americans touched the ball on that play, in sequence: Tim Howard to Landon Donovan to Jozy Altidore to Clint Dempsey and then, fatefully, to Landon Donovan. You could do a lot worse than those four if you had to pick the greatest soccer players in US history.
That team was full of Americans who gave me hope, who played with hope. They came from different backgrounds, they took different paths to the World Cup. From Jay DeMerit to Carlos Bocanegra to Michael Bradley, it was a group that represented so much that is wonderful about America and our soccer community. We loved them. They were, insofar as I believe anything, my heroes. In just a single counterattack, we were given our miracle moment.
The details of my experience at the knockout match three days after the miracle may be only interesting only to me. Then again, soccer is a sport that has spawned all manner of storytelling travelogues. Why not add a vignette of my own?
Being at a World Cup is an exceptionally surreal experience. The jetlag (especially for someone leaving the US for the first time), the traffic on the drive to Rustenberg throughout the varied South African landscape to arrive at a stadium of just under 35,000 on the outskirts of the city. In the stadium, I bought (and immediately dropped) my first legal beer. An English fan–too optimistic when he bought his ticket–laughed at me. I sat in a section of Americans surrounded by a sea of Ghana supporters.
In the stadium, it all felt so unimportant–like we were at just another soccer match until the low hum of the vuvuzelas reminded me that this was the center of the world right now. A large chunk of the world—including a ton of my friends– would be watching on television, and yet I was here in this average-sized, ordinary stadium, where the match was going to actually happen. I couldn’t believe my luck.
For a moment, it looked as if the US and Landon Donovan- playing what would be his final World Cup game- would come up with another dramatic win. It just wasn’t meant to be.
As for the game, I remember thinking Donovan had missed his penalty because I heard it hit the crossbar. I remember the smell of burning crops wafting into the stadium–something that local farmers did that time of year. I remember being handed an American flag–with a pole!–right before Donovan’s equalizing penalty. I remember Gyan’s absolutely heartbreaking goal just a couple minutes into extra time. I remember it being colder than I expected. Just after the Gyan goal in stoppage time, I remember a group of us singing “Don’t Stop Believing”–that most American of tunes. Then I remember Michael Bradley collapsing onto the pitch as the 2-1 defeat became a reality. As Bradley and the other players collapsed in front of us, defeated, it all felt like a letdown. They–we–US Soccer, had blown its chance. For probably the only time in my life, I was able to see the team that had meant so much to me in a World Cup, and it was a painful, frustrating loss. This, surely, was the best chance the US would ever have to reach a World Cup Semifinal. It felt crushing even as they lost to what was a truly excellent Ghanian side.
The 2-1 loss felt, and still feels, like a turning point for US Men’s Soccer.
The USMNT had its opportunity, but couldn’t come through. The countless retrospectives on Donovan’s goal this past week will surely dwarf the story about the match his most famous goal earned. There will not be (one must think) an oral history of the knockout match. It is the cold, hard ending to a happier story. Donovan’s miracle goal only earned him a single additional World Cup match. It’s remarkable to think that after Rustenberg, Landon Donovan would never play in the World Cup again.
Soccer has brought so much meaning to my life.
Many–friends, partners, my family–have scoffed at how I have derived such meaning, such joy and pain, from grown men kicking a ball around. It has always been my escape, a happiness, a joy. In the darker moments of my life, it’s been the reason to keep going another week, another month, another year. That gift comes with a price, one where we accept the losses and the failures because they all necessarily serve to make the future sweeter. We always have the hope that next year will in fact be our year.
Thinking back to that stadium in Rustenburg, I realize just how much I miss those days. How much I miss those guys, that team. Landon and Deuce and MB90 and DeMerit and Timmy and Edson Buddle. Those were my guys. But thinking back to it all I am reminded how in life our positive moments and memories stay, but the negative moments fall away. Popular history remembers how the Giants made it to the World Series in 1951, and forgets the details about what happened afterwards. It is so easy to dismiss the 2010 World Cup as a missed opportunity for a golden generation of US soccer players. But it can’t just be that. Donovan still scored. The US still won a World Cup group, which hadn’t happened before and hasn’t since. I still can’t believe that. It wasn’t a matter of luck–we had two disallowed goals in the preceding 100 minutes. It was a matter of seizing the right moment, in the perfect place. And that makes all the difference. Even in something as simple and silly as this sport we all love.
So I remind myself, no matter how painful the last ten years of loving this absolutely infuriating team have been, we’ll always have Pretoria. And maybe–just maybe–that’s enough.
Until, of course, the next batch of kids, the next golden generation, have that same hopeful shine in their eye.
Sean McElroy is a TYAC alum who now practices tax law in California. For more excellent soccer stories and takes, follow him on Twitter @sean_p_mcelroy.