6/6/2021 – USA 3, Mexico 2 (ET) – Nations League Champs

Columns in this space often strive to pull out the one moment, or one feeling, from a sporting event that we can build a story around. We like our numbers but we are not robots. We're in this to feel a thing, and in most sporting events there is a defining thing that ordains misery or joy.

Here, yes, there was one. When a soccer team preserves a lead in the 123rd minute with a penalty save from a backup goalkeeper who has seen four games for his club all season—who follows that up with an exhortation to drink Pepsi Max instead of alcohol in the post-game interview—there's a defining moment. But no, it was not, because soccer games that are ludicrous fast-forward montages set to that "Having A Wonderful Time" song aren't defined by anything that simple or understandable. Now that I have children I can participate in Spongebob memery!

If you watch that at 2x that's USA 3, Mexico 2. Drunk like Ethan Horvath never is.

[After THE JUMP: Mark May appears]

In the aftermath there was a cottage industry of tweets saying LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF THAT HAPPENED IN A TWO THREE HOUR WINDOW:

Tonight we had:
A 2’ goal
3 scuffles
2 equalizers
Anti-discrimination protocol
GK injury sub
Extra time
A match winning pk
A match winning pk save
Fans injuring players
Broadcast booth invader
Pitch invaders
Manager red card

I love this rivalry#CONCACAF #USMNT #USAvMEX #cnl

— Michelle Schmidt (@mschmidt_soccer) June 7, 2021

The common thread across all of them is that they inevitably left things out. Twitter still has a character limit. This one doesn't mention Hector Herrera failing to get ejected for either putting his hands on Weston McKennie's neck or cleaning out Tim Weah with a studs-up tackle, or a goal ruled out by VAR, or anything Clint Dempsey did.

Clint Dempsey doin' maths pic.twitter.com/LDJTVOcmlV

— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) June 7, 2021

Yes, that. Nonsense. Delight. A slightly stoned(?) Clint Dempsey in a camo blazer and sunglasses at night beatboxing on a calculator.

God I needed that. I am a dual USMNT/Michigan fan who haven't seen a meaningful win in the most important game either program plays* since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. I thought about the impossible moppet in front of me at the Illinois game that ended 67-65:

He was about ten. He was wearing a number seven jersey and when he took his hat off for the national anthem his hair was staticky. Before the game he was hopping up in down in an attempt to burn off nervous energy, and when Michigan ran out to touch the banner his mind was blown. He exclaimed "this is so AWESOME" as only a ten-year-old boy can. The words forced themselves out in self defense—if they hadn't the pressure would have given him an aneurysm. I know what that excitement is like. I remember getting a Nintendo.

I can't imagine what his mind is like four fighter jets, three overtimes, 132 points, and one last-play win later. He's probably sitting at his desk right now, mouth slightly ajar and drooling, involuntarily twitching out the words "so" and "awesome" as the rest of the class learns to count to 15 in Spanish. Plans to put him on ritalin have been temporarily shelved. His father has been asked "what did you do to the boy?"

I was that! You were that! Except instead of a two-point win over a Ron Zook Illinois team this was beating Mexico in a continental final. (Technically!) Fuck yes!

*[I see you USWNT and basketball, thank you for your service.]

--------------------------------

A week ago I asked a friend if he wanted to watch the Honduras semi-final. The response I got was more or less "I don't waste my time on this stuff anymore." I understood this reaction, but I am a person who finishes every book he starts even if I hate it fifty pages in. I am contractually obligated. I envied people who were able to get off the track. Soccer is a thunderbolt sport and almost all of the strikes since Klinsmann was given a second World Cup cycle have hit USA fans in delicate areas.

Soccer is also a sport of superstition, omens, and portents. When Landon Donovan ran onto a ball in stoppage time against Algeria it felt right. It felt like a thing US soccer does. From my column after:

The USMNT is the 1980 hockey team spread over twenty years, because that's the way we want it.

We don't roll around on the ground. If we fall over, we probably just fell over. We run and and run and run, and late, when everything is stacked against us in a game where it's just so hard to finish the job, we do it Puritan style: ugly effort. A minute into stoppage time, the ball's just lying there and it's all about who will get there first.

Sure, I'll embed that.

I still can barely hold it together watching it.

Over the intervening—God—11 years we lost that, catastrophically. A program that had always survived by going balls to the wall at all times fell into listlessness as Juergen Klinsmann screamed "Jozy, faster" from the sidelines. Landon Donovan and Oguchi Onyewu and Clint Dempsey all aged out, and a new generation of motherfuckers did not rise. Michael Bradley went from a walking yellow card to a steady metronome and then a scapegoat. The US actually had to import its hardass in 2014, when Jermaine Jones lit the candle briefly.

First Klinsmann, and then an abortive Arena era, and then a year-long period with an anodyne caretaker whose name I don't remember and don't care to, left the US in this horrible limbo where they were neither talented enough nor committed enough to do anything but flail. Then Berhalter was presented with a seemingly never-ending series of friendlies and a pandemic. We could look at his selections and tactics and debate them to no end. We could not see whether the USA had regained any lip curl.

ok so I had to go back and pull this up because I loved it so much.

Weston McKennie was in the middle of the late scuffle ready to take on every El Tri player.

5 minutes later he was sharing his water with Edson Alvarez

pic.twitter.com/vD3WeRQlIf

— USMNT Only (@usmntonly) June 7, 2021

They have. This is a team that scores and runs over to the sideline specifically so they can be pelted with full beers. It is entirely appropriate that McKennie was the one to rise up, again, and this time slot his towering header past Memo Ochoa, just as every USA fan watching had resigned themselves to the same old thing.

NOT SO FAST! WESTON MCKENNIE pic.twitter.com/sLCRPhqML5

— CBS Sports Golazo (@CBSSportsGolazo) June 7, 2021

Every single corner it felt like McKennie had run from the center stripe and through several Mexicans to deliver Thor's hammer unto the opposition. Deep into extra time he was chasing like it was the tenth minute. He has personally tried to fight everyone in Mexico. He is 22. I would fight anyone who tried to put the captain's armband on anyone else, but see above: McKennie will have already fought them.

Other people can talk tactics. Today I am here for the sneer. The staredown. The refusal to go quietly.

Fwd:I am back

— Mark May (@mark_may) September 18, 2013

At long last, game on.