At 90:45
Crammed behind a desk with two co-workers, I watched the ball slam into the back of a net for a US goal against Algeria. It came at the 91st minute of the match but it’s not like you didn’t know this since you were there, too, watching from an iPhone, a HDTV in a bar somewhere across the country or in an office, like me, covering your mouth so no one can hear you yell; wiping your eyes until the restraints of disbelief unleash the truth. Landon Donovan scored for an entire country whose traditionally scrappy game play reminded us a bit of ourselves.
Admittedly I am not a lifetime soccer fan. The only game I had ever watched before the last World Cup, four years ago, was in 1994 when a Colombian player accidentally knocked the ball into his side’s net, scoring an own goal, and giving the US the win (2-1). He returned home and was shot and killed outside of a bar. I didn’t watch another game until the 2006 World Cup.
Soccer remained only as a curiosity for me — almost a joke. I couldn’t understand the delight of seeing grown men run up and down a pitch, passing a ball for ninety minutes, only to score one or two goals. Like many other Americans, I needed high-scoring games, velocity and violence, charismatic personalities embellished by colorful commentators. (All of which I later learned were just the basic and wonderful pleasures of a soccer match). I just couldn’t see the sport in soccer. Then there was the 2006 World Cup when Portugal was busy, barreling through the ranks. My Portuguese friends taught me the game and it was then I opened my eyes like a reborn sports fan. Together we watched Portugal squeeze out of their group toward the World Cup finals. I felt my heart palpitate within my chest, my palms sweat, my emotions control my body during every game. I had felt this before but it had come only during an ecstasy drug binge. But a sport? No sport had ever done that for me before because no other sport transcends politics and national pride; no sport has ever mattered to the world like soccer.
What Landon Donovan did yesterday was take our hearts and minds away from the problems of our country. The Gulf oil flood, the economy, continued job losses, divisive politics, the widening gap between the classes, health care; bombardment of depressing news coming from every corner of these 50 states. He gave us what other national teams give their countries: Hope, respect, and pride. When was the last time you felt this proud to be an American with people of the red and blue states? Of course Donovan didn’t instill this shared pride alone. That goal was coming. In fact, it had already come twice before when Dempsey’s earlier shot into the net was wrongly recalled as offsides and Edu’s goal against Slovenia was stunningly and disgracefully taken away from us.
It’s not just a game when people call in sick to go to work to join their compatriots in a bar or when South Africans chant “U-S-A” because of our support against Apartheid in the ’70s and ’80s. It’s not just a game when our eyes well up at the sight of a man, wearing the colors of his troubled country, running across the pitch to celebrate his team’s unlikely advancement through the World Cup. It wasn’t just the players of the US national team who needed this win to advance; we all needed it.
Most of us in the US have been feeling less than encouraged about our country’s future. Soccer won’t ever solve our problems but our national team reminds us of what we are capable when we’ve lost vision. In the 91st minute, of any situation, we push through to the next round. Landon Donovan, and the rest of his team, will return to the US as heros no matter what happens because they didn’t complain and because they never gave up on a win. No matter what happens in South Africa, all of us can find an example on that 23 player roster for overcoming seemingly unconquerable challenges.
Let’s see that one more time for old smile’s sake
