When American soccer fans think of South Africa 2010, they tend to immediately think of the Algeria game.

Which is understandable. The 1-0 victory. The late goal by Landon Donovan put the Yanks into the final 16, and allowed them to win a group which included England. The epic Andres Cantor call.

But the 2-2 draw with Slovenia, a few days earlier, was a bigger deal. And that is the video you ought to review.

Why?

The U.S. trailed 2-0 in that one.

That is when Landon Donovan scored an impossible goal to make it 2-1, and launched the free kick that produced the Michael Bradley goal, and also the corner that led to what should have been the winning goal by Maurice Edu.

I wrote a very long blog post about that game, and I think it is one of the better things I have ever done.

Especially the first two-thirds of it.

Here is a link to that blog post, from four years ago.

The man of the match? Landon Donovan, without the slightest question.

The man Jurgen Klinsmann couldn’t find a place for at Brazil. Amazing.