10 Years On: Remembering Landon Donovan’s World Cup Spectacle
Tuesday marks exactly a decade passed since American soccer’s greatest male player scored his greatest goal in the Red, White and Blue, a stunning stoppage-time winner over Algeria that transformed the United States’ 2010 World Cup fate and landed the men’s squad at last in the American sports mainstream.
Looking back, it’s tempting to lament the lack of international progress in the 10 years since Landon Donovan’s crowning moment. Jurgen Klinsmann inexplicably left Donovan off his 2014 U.S. World Cup squad, and while the Americans still escaped their group, Tim Howard’s tournament record 16 saves prevented a 2-1 extra-time defeat to Belgium in the round of 16 from being a night of embarrassment. The deterioration under Klinsmann afterward and Bruce Arena’s imperfect salvage effort left the U.S. unthinkably outside the World Cup all together in 2018. And the rebuilding process under manager Gregg Berhalter has been haphazard, with the real test of qualifying for 2022 in Qatar approaching sooner or later.
By any measure, there has been enough talent and investment in the program for fans to be rightly frustrated by the subpar results since that blustery Pretoria evening. Even so, though, the foundation Donovan’s goal laid is undeniable. You can see it in the young Americans just now coming into their own.
It was once a huge deal when a “Yank” found his way into UEFA Champions League competition. This season, Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic, RB Leipzig’s Tyler Adams, Ajax’s Sergino Dest and Borussia Dortmund’s Giovanni Reyna have all played in it. Of those players, only Pulisic and Adams are currently old enough to legally drink in The States. Absurdly, Pulisic has already set the American record for career Champions League appearances thanks to his teenage years at Dortmund.