Since the US handed Spain an unexpected, yet much deserved loss today, the one question I keep hearing, and being asked, is if this is the biggest US soccer win ever?

Let me start by saying that I haven’t had the sort of emotional roller coaster that this game provided in a long time. This shit was epic. No matter what club games I watch from MLS and abroad, nothing brings out my emotions in the sport like watching the US National team play. And today was an amazing day to be an American soccer fan.

To the question of is this the biggest or most important US soccer win of all time, I have to say that it ranks second. For me, the biggest and most significant win will always be the US v Trinidad that put us into the 1990 World Cup. That game changed history. That took us to a World Cup for the first time 40 years. That victory not only got us into Italia ’90, but helped the US host the World Cup four years later, and a condition of winning that World Cup bid, and hosting that ’94 World Cup was the creation of a domestic professional league… thus we have MLS. That game against Trinidad and Tobago has forever affected and changed the history /future of soccer in the US (which ultimately laid the groundwork for this win over Spain); so for me, no other win will compete with that.

Outside of that, the “W” against Spain is the biggest win for a US National team. Besides the countless emails and texts I have had about this win, Dunny and I talked about it as well. We talked about the win against Colombia in ’94, beating Brazil in Copa America England in 1950, and beating Portugal and Mexico in the 2002 World Cup. All of these were monumental wins, especially the games won in the World Cup. But no game that a US team has ever won has advanced them into the final of a tournament that features the champions from all the regions of the world (go ahead and insert obligatory Confederations Cup comment here). And that is a major difference from the other massive wins. And in the final two games the US HAD to win, they beat the African champions AND the European champions. Like whoa! Come on now, that’s what’s up!

One of the things that I have heard, and it is true, is that the US were lucky to squeak through the group stage after a couple of poor games. The thing is that they did advance. It took some luck to get through (Brazil beating up on Italy 3-0…mixed with the 3-0 win against Egypt), but luck is part of the process. There are always teams that seem to have luck on their side. They have poor performances in a group stage (calling Italy, Italy please pick up the red courtesy phone), yet they advance and then they go on to achieve great things. This is the first major tournament I can think of where the US had some of that luck. And a little bit of luck is needed…in everything in life (see the timing of Ed Hardy t-shirts)! With the blessing of a little luck, the US moved on to play the European champions, the top ranked team in the world, and frankly a Spanish team that has been making its opponents look amateur. And our boys took it to Spain, never backed down, fought their asses off and pulled off a win that all of us who watched will forever remember.

I’m mad proud of the team… proud of our boys for their performance and wish them all the best in the finals. At the end of the day, today’s result is what the sport is all about. Hope, pride, guts and belief. The US team oozed all of these today and made an entire nation proud (at least the nation I live in – haters stand down). But the most important win ever, not quite. The second..absolutely! And hopefully this is the first of many wins that advance us to the finals of international tournaments like this!