americans used to complain that there aren't enough goals in football.
but it's the scarcity of them that makes each one valuable. and it's the tension of a close game up to the last minute that makes things so excruciatingly exciting.
in the last minute of ordinary time, the us might so easily have won it.
and yet in heroic defeat there was also dignity.
viewed in this mirror, america looks different to me. i liked what i saw much better than when i see the basketball dream team or the triumphalism of the olympians.
hopefully the us preserves its status in soccer, not as the winners but as underdogs. it reveals something far more sympathetic. what we call character.
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