USA Wins 1-0!!

Destiny? Two months ago I posted about two American footballers who made a real impact in England this season - Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan. Today I have the honor of posting about a historic World Cup win for the United States, secured in the dying minutes of the match by Donovan on a rebound from a Dempsey shot.

I celebrated the victory with several colleagues from Southbank - two Englishmen, a Spaniard and another American - at a nearby pub called the Old Swan. I had watched the USA's amazing second-half comeback against Slovenia there, and the bartenders and owner remember me for jumping out of my seat and running screaming across the pub to celebrate the goal that put us up 3-2. Of course, the goal was disallowed and all the Brits had a good laugh at my expense.

However, I reminded the bartender of my celebration yesterday, and he agreed to air the USA game just for me if I promised to celebrate like that again. And so it was that my colleagues and I sat watching England on two big screens and the USA on another, watched only by the handful of other Americans and the lone Algerian in the pub, with whom I shared a pleasant back and forth throughout the match.

Everyone cheered for England when they scored in the first half, but that meant the pressure was on for the USA to win. After yet another unjustly disallowed goal in the first half and too many missed chances in the second, I was thoroughly depressed and resigned to our fate. I complained to my English friends about how unfair it was, and how the referees should never be able to affect a nation's performance like this. "That's nothing," they told me. "Real injustice and real heartbreak is watching your team get to the World Cup semis and losing to the Hand of God!"

Well, perhaps there was some divine intervention in our favor today, because we certainly deserved this one as much as we did the last. When Donovan hammered home from Dempsey's rebound, I jumped wildly around our area screaming, hugging and high-fiveing everyone in sight. When the BBC cameras cut to some Americans in the crowd with a 'Yes We Can' sign, I took up the chorus and led our contingent in an exuberant 'Yes We Can' chant that surely amused all the Brits in the pub.

After all, we don't have any football songs like they do here, but if the USA continues on its current form, I may just have to write one.