Allow me to fanboy a moment.
The United States men's national soccer team beat Spain's men's national soccer team in the knockout stages of a major FIFA tournament yesterday. Beat them convincingly and definitively. It wasn't luck, they weren't looking past us. We were the better team yesterday. The final score was 2-0. Or as we say in America, two-nothing.
Joy.
Just pure, unqualified, unambiguous joy. I haven't stopped smiling since 4:22 yesterday afternoon, when I saw the ESPN.com matchtracker mistakenly post "Full Time: ESP 0:3 USA" or something like that.
For me, watching the match was a pure US Soccer fan experience. Watch it live on TV in my native language? Well, unlike those who'd come before me, that option was available. But I couldn't skive off of work yesterday because I'm in a class, so I "watched" the match on the classroom computers, first following the surprisingly good fifa.com matchtracker (my favorite option, The Guardian.co.uk, wasn't covering this one), then when their servers became overloaded, the ESPN.com matchtracker.
My breath hitched a bit when I saw that Davies had nearly scored in the 8th minute. I nearly jumped out of my seat when Jozy put us ahead. I spent minutes 28-73 in absolute terror, watching "DAVID VILLA has shot blocked" and "XAVI swings in a corner kick" over and over again. Class was over by the time Deuce hit the clincher, and I was barely keeping my cool. When it hit me that the match was over and we had actually won, I jumped around the nearly empty classroom like a five-year-old.
After I got home, I turned on my DVRed recording of the game. I watched Jozy's goal, Clint's goal, the final whistle, and Alexi and Reese's recap. I haven't been off of Google News since, trying to find every available article on the match. I've read them in English, German (and even a couple in Spanish). It took me hours to get to sleep last night, and I sprung out of bed this morning to hunt down more articles (nearly missing my train!) before leaving for work.
In terms of importance, I guess this victory ranks right up there for our boys. It's not '89 vs. Trinidad, nor is it '02 vs. Portugal, but it's certainly a more important (if not more improbable) win than '50 vs. England, and while it's not as important as '02 vs. Mexico, anyone who's ever watched a sporting event knew that when we drew Mexico we were through to the quarterfinals.
I'm just incoherently happy. And as an American soccer fan (who gets to simultaneously hear "you guys can't play this game" from folks who live elsewhere and "why should we care" from fellow countrymen), I think I've earned that.
Joy.
Just pure, unqualified, unambiguous joy. I haven't stopped smiling since 4:22 yesterday afternoon, when I saw the ESPN.com matchtracker mistakenly post "Full Time: ESP 0:3 USA" or something like that.
For me, watching the match was a pure US Soccer fan experience. Watch it live on TV in my native language? Well, unlike those who'd come before me, that option was available. But I couldn't skive off of work yesterday because I'm in a class, so I "watched" the match on the classroom computers, first following the surprisingly good fifa.com matchtracker (my favorite option, The Guardian.co.uk, wasn't covering this one), then when their servers became overloaded, the ESPN.com matchtracker.
My breath hitched a bit when I saw that Davies had nearly scored in the 8th minute. I nearly jumped out of my seat when Jozy put us ahead. I spent minutes 28-73 in absolute terror, watching "DAVID VILLA has shot blocked" and "XAVI swings in a corner kick" over and over again. Class was over by the time Deuce hit the clincher, and I was barely keeping my cool. When it hit me that the match was over and we had actually won, I jumped around the nearly empty classroom like a five-year-old.
After I got home, I turned on my DVRed recording of the game. I watched Jozy's goal, Clint's goal, the final whistle, and Alexi and Reese's recap. I haven't been off of Google News since, trying to find every available article on the match. I've read them in English, German (and even a couple in Spanish). It took me hours to get to sleep last night, and I sprung out of bed this morning to hunt down more articles (nearly missing my train!) before leaving for work.
In terms of importance, I guess this victory ranks right up there for our boys. It's not '89 vs. Trinidad, nor is it '02 vs. Portugal, but it's certainly a more important (if not more improbable) win than '50 vs. England, and while it's not as important as '02 vs. Mexico, anyone who's ever watched a sporting event knew that when we drew Mexico we were through to the quarterfinals.
I'm just incoherently happy. And as an American soccer fan (who gets to simultaneously hear "you guys can't play this game" from folks who live elsewhere and "why should we care" from fellow countrymen), I think I've earned that.