United States Athletic Teams

It was a memorable night in Northern Ireland. A crowd of 14,500 had packed into tiny Windsor Park in Belfast to watch the home team play Spain in an early qualifying match for soccer's Euro 2008 tournament. The Irish were decided underdogs. The Spanish were ranked seventh in the world. Xavi put Spain ahead after only 14 minutes. But David Healy tied it up. David Villa restored Spain's lead early in the second half. But Healy again tied it up.

Soccer's Confederations Cup is over and done with and the U.S. team, derided only 11 days ago but lauded today, is heading home from South Africa. It does so not with its tail between its legs, as once feared, but with a silver medal around its neck. So what did Coach Bob Bradley learn from a tournament that saw the Americans start off in horrendous fashion but still reach Sunday's final, only to lose, 3-2, to Brazil in Johannesburg? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

A decade ago, in the summer of 1999, a group of American women led by the likes of Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers, Julie Foudy and Joy Fawcett, carried the U.S. to one of its admittedly few but certainly most memorable soccer triumphs. By winning the Women's World Cup and, in the process, selling out stadiums all across America, the team captured the imagination not only of the soccer community but of the entire country.

Let's keep our heads here. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking Sunday's pulse-pounding soccer -- the long-suffering U.S. nationals only one hard header from winning the Confederations Cup in South Africa -- will dramatically change the game's fortunes on U.S. soil. For most American sports fans, come next week it'll be back to the old standbys: fireworks and baseball, NASCAR and apple pie.

Ten years ago, in front of the bulging eyes of a nation, a female athlete tore off her shirt, baring her black sports bra and her powerful soul. Today, the shirt is in a drawer, the bra is in a frame, but the essence of that soul still soars through a woman's sports landscape that was changed forever. "It was about so much more than soccer," Brandi Chastain says. You remember, right? Will anybody who witnessed the culture-changing events of that sweltering summer day ever forget?

A few weeks ago, Javier Aguirre was in Arlington, Texas, swapping football memories with Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys. That's football, not futbol . It turns out that the coach of Mexico's national soccer team is not only an NFL fan but a Cowboys fan. And not only a Cowboys fan but a Roger Staubach fan. "I have to confess, I've been a Cowboys fan since birth," Aguirre told Jones. "I have everything when it comes to Roger Staubach. Everything." Jones had stopped by his new House of Many Splendors -- the $1.15-billion Cowboys Stadium -- to watch Mexico's soccer team train for a Gold Cup quarterfinal game against Haiti.

What does relief sound like? Across Mexico on Wednesday, it was millions of soccer fans shouting "GOOOAAALLLL!" as their national team scored late in the game to defeat the formidable Americans, 2-1. Gracias a dios , disaster averted. Mexico, at any time, is passionate about the revered sport. Throw in the long string of bad news whipping the country -- a bloodcurdling drug war, a deadly flu epidemic -- and the patriotic emotions caught up in facing that big, powerful neighbor to the north, and you have the ingredients for obsession.

So, is the U.S. in soccer's World Cup next year in South Africa? Is it all over but the shouting? "No, I don't think we're in yet," U.S. midfielder Benny Feilhaber said Saturday night, after playing a pivotal role in helping the U.S. defeat El Salvador, 2-1, in Sandy, Utah. "Obviously, it's a huge three points for us. I think we needed to get this win, and we did. Trinidad is the next game, and if we can get three points there we'll be a little bit closer." The U.S.-Trinidad and Tobago game is today (3:30 p.m., ESPN Classic)

There are two names on the lips of every Honduran soccer fan today -- Carlos Pavon and Jonathan Bornstein. Pavon, briefly a Galaxy forward, scored the vital goal Wednesday night that earned Honduras a 1-0 victory over El Salvador in San Salvador. Bornstein, the Chivas USA defender, scored an even more telling goal, heading home the ball with only seconds to play to give the U.S. a 2-2 tie with Costa Rica at RFK Stadium in Washington. The combined results meant that Honduras qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa while Costa Rica was consigned to a playoff against Uruguay, which lost at home, 1-0, to Argentina.

Vanessa Atler never saw Sang Lan fall. "I heard it, when everyone gasped," said Atler, a gymnast from Canyon Country who was warming up nearby. "You knew it wasn't good." Sang, a 17-year-old Chinese gymnast, lost a big part of the rest of her life that night at the Goodwill Games in New York when she was paralyzed by a fall on a routine practice vault. Atler, 16, won the competition--taking the gold medal on the vault by blocking out the awful thing that had happened to another gymnast.