USA-Algeria 2010 FIFA World Cup: USA's Win Allows Fans To Hold Heads High

USA 1-Algeria 0

For those of you lucky enough to watch the entire game (and/or those who have followed the arc of US soccer for all these many years), today your passion and patience were rewarded.

You can breathe again after 91 minutes of chewing your lower lip, trying to sit still, hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. And you can trumpet to all who will listen that the United States just won a World Cup group for the first time in 80 years.

For those of you who do not follow soccer football at all, my honest question would be: Does this not touch you even a little?

Moments like these are why we watch sports.

Hold your head high, USA fans. As a football nation we aren't quite "there" yet. We get little respect in our own country, and are still looking well up the mountain at the likes of Brazil, Germany, Argentina and Italy.

But we can see them from here.

Onward and upward.