It's just easier to care about soccer now. Actually, it's something of a perfect storm -- the technology in place, the flaws of our own professional sports, the efficiency of soccer games, our longing for the pre-JumboTron days when people just cheered and that's what fans did, our best-of-the-best fetish, ESPN's unwavering commitment to pushing the sport, the urgency of every game -- that makes more sense as a whole than it did 10 years ago. After that crushing Ghana defeat, the U.S. players weren't devastated just because they blew a winnable game, but because they knew a growing number of Americans actually cared and it wasn't simply a bandwagon thing. (The TV ratings backed it up: an astonishing 19.4 million U.S. viewers.) It was like pining for the same girl for four years in college, finally hooking up with her one night, then getting kicked out of school the next day.

Dammit! I blew it! I had her! We could have had something!

Regardless, the U.S. completed Stage 1. Soccer is no longer taking off. It's here. Those celebratory YouTube videos that started popping up in the 24 hours after Donovan's goal -- all unfolding the same way, with a stationary shot of nervous fans watching the game in a bar, going quiet for a couple of seconds during the American counterattack, reacting to Dempsey's miss ("Nooooooooo!"), holding their breath for two beats ("Wait a second …"), exploding on Donovan's finish ("Hi-yahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"), then chanting "USA! USA! USA!" afterward -- tapped into a collective American sports experience unlike anything since Lake Placid.

I would never compare Donovan's goal to Mike Eruzione's goal, or compare the significance of an early-round World Cup game to the best American sports night ever. But you can't tell me Donovan's goal was a fleeting moment or a lark. Each celebration clip that landed on YouTube could have been any American bar, any group of American friends, anywhere. Like John Cougar Mellencamp's annoying Chevy commercial sprung to life. Only it wasn't annoying. I thought it was glorious. Those clips choked me up. Those clips gave me goosebumps. Those clips made me think, "I forget this sometimes, but I'm glad I live in the United States of America."

Rasheed Wallace loved to say "ball don't lie." YouTube don't lie, either. We will always have the Algeria game. Always.