Gonzo: Give Landon Donovan his due

If you're bored at work one day and need a quick distraction, go back and review America's great accomplishments in the World Cup. Don't worry about your boss catching you and complaining that you're slacking off and wasting valuable company time. It won't take long.

The (short) list begins with the U.S. side's improbable 1-0 win in 1950 over our former oppressors from England. Though it remains unclear how many people actually celebrated the victory when it happened, it surely was one of the highlights of the year for Americans across our fine land - right up there with the debut of the Peanuts comic strip and not getting turned into a fine powder by a Soviet atomic bomb.

After that, you probably have to skip ahead a few decades to find something of merit. America hosted the World Cup in 1994. It was swell. The United States even advanced out of its group to reach the round of 16 - at which point Brazil beat the Yanks, 1-0, and sent the Americans home. Fortunately, they already were there and didn't have to go too far. Hooray for short commutes.

You may remember the '94 Cup. Alexi Lalas, who does studio work for ESPN now, was on that team. He's clean-cut today. Back then he gained lots of media attention for having long hair and an even longer goatee. It made him look as if he was auditioning for a Seattle grunge rock band, a style of both music and fashion that many of you kids out there will be astonished to learn was cool(ish) back in the day.

Up until this week, that was pretty much the rundown of great American achievements in the World Cup: beating a tiny European island with questionable dental hygiene and that time Lalas forgot to shave. Then Landon Donovan came along on Wednesday and changed everything.

The United States was tied with Algeria in injury time of its final match of group play when Donovan caused the entire soccer-watching world to have a simultaneous heart hiccup. (That's a technical medical term - heart hiccup.) It appeared to almost everyone that the Americans would be sent home yet again without accomplishing anything important or even bothering to entertain their loyal fans. Then the U.S. team went on an unlikely mad dash toward the Algerian goal, and Donovan, trailing the play, put home a stunning rebound minutes before the final whistle was blown.

That goal not only won the game for his team but also helped America advance to the round of 16, in which it will play Ghana on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. It was the first time the United States had won its group since 1930. That was also the year Grant Wood created American Gothic, a painting considered high art from that point to this. Historians remain torn over which of those outcomes was more implausible.

For a country that hasn't had great (or even marginal) success in the World Cup, Donovan's mind-blowing late strike is easily the greatest feat in American soccer's not-so-storied history. It was so incredible, in fact, that it should be mentioned along with other dramatic and startling moments in U.S. sports - right up there with The Catch, Michael Jordan's shot over Craig Ehlo, Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield's ear, and the day Tonya Harding's thug kneecapped Nancy Kerrigan.

It truly was a momentous goal. If Donovan hadn't scored there, who knows what would have happened? Perhaps, in an attempt to show the Algerians who's boss, Congress would have declared war and we would have been forced to send six or seven of our National Guardsmen to invade (once we consulted an atlas and found Algeria's location). No one wanted that. Troop deployment is messy business.

Sadly, Donovan's spectacular and indelible performance didn't seem to properly register with American media members - many of whom appeared to blink at the result and maybe casually high-five their nearest coworker before heading out on their lunch breaks. The lines at Applebee's are crazy. You can't risk these things, I guess.

The headlines after the U.S. team advanced were largely underwhelming and ranged from the obvious ("Yes" on Foxsports.com) to the pop-culture predictable ("Party in the U.S.A." on ESPN.com) to the clinical ("Fantastic 1-0 finish advances U.S." on CNN.com). That none of the major newspapers heralded the victory on the front page using 50-point font - usually reserved for attacks on Pearl Harbor and matters concerning Tiger Woods - was disappointing.

If the United States beats Ghana and advances to the next round, hopefully the media will make up for the slight by employing more exclamation marks and plenty of hyperbole. It's the American way. If the United States loses to Ghana, the media no doubt will bury the story and turn to baseball. That, too, is the American way. It's a great country.