Maybe soccer wonks already know about this guy and his site. I found out just the other day, when he introduced himself via e-mail, and I’m actually quite excited about it.

This guy Dave Brett (find his site here) has collected hundreds (thousands?) of recordings from matches pertaining, in the main, to U.S. soccer. Both national and professional, including the long-gone North American Soccer League.

I just now counted nearly 300 offerings of U.S national team games, with the oldest going back to 1979 — a 6-0 loss to France.

If you just have to own (or see one more time) that Match from Back in the Day, this is the guy to contact. He will trade one of his videos/DVDs for one of yours, if you have something he needs … but otherwise I think you need to pay him.

I already know the match I want to see.

USA vs. Trinidad & Tobago in the famous “Shot Heard Round the World” match at Port of Spain in November 1989.

I covered that match, the one in which the Americans needed to win, on the road, to qualify for the 1990 World Cup.

But, like most of the other handful of American reporters there on that sunny Sunday, I didn’t actually see the goal — Paul Caligiuri’s marvelous shot into the corner of the net in the first half.

The match wasn’t televised to the U.S., I’m almost certain, and I know for a fact there was no TV in the crude press box, and no replay available. So I have yet to see the goal because I was jotting down a note as Brian Bliss gave the ball to Cal, who took that long, unexpected crack that went in — and changed U.S. soccer history.

(If the U.S. ties or loses, T&T goes to Italy for the 1990 World Cup, the U.S. very possibly loses the right to stage the 1994 World Cup, Major League Soccer doesn’t start up as early as 1996, etc., etc.)

So, I’ve never actually seen the goal. Though I asked all the key players about it, after the match. (I still remember that tiny U.S. locker room, and the sickly sweet smell of champagne by the gallon on the floor — and on my clothes.)

What made that match so great was …

1. The do-or-die aspect to it. One of those teams was going to the World Cup. The U.S. for the first time since 1950 … or T&T for the first time. At all.

2. The city of Port of Spain was nuts. The locals knew, they just knew, their team was going to the World Cup, and soccer is the sport in that nation (except among the ethnic Indians, a minority, who prefer cricket).

The day before the match I bought a straw hat I may still have here somewhere that has a band around it that reads, “Trinidad & Tobago, 1990 World Cup, Italy.” Also, local travel agencies were offering package World Cup tours to Italy — to see T&T’s games there, the following summer. (I suppose that would be considered serious “negative karma” in modern sports fandom.)

3. The U.S. team, which I had joined as it traveled down from Miami, was greeted at the Port of Spain airport late Friday night by live local TV and 10,000 Trinidadians chanting “search and destroy!” (It was the team slogan, perhaps from some contemporary song?) That semi-menacing reception established immediately how huge this match was, as I followed the team through customs and into the arrival area — where fans were packed so tightly we had to have security create a path for us to get through.

4. The Trinidadians created a “sea of red” by wearing the national colors to the game. They filled the ancient and rickety stadium hours before kickoff. At a reception brunch at the U.S. ambassador’s home, on a hill overlooking the city, we could look down (from the big lawn, in the back of the house) at the stadium, miles away, and see the people already in the stands, and sometimes, when the wind was right, we could hear them chanting “search and destroy!”

5. It was madness for the first half hour of the game, just incredible noise and energy in the stadium … and then Caligiuri scored his improbable goal — and it was as if someone had hit a giant “mute” button. It was that quiet, that quickly.

After that, the Yanks held on against the increasingly desperate (and increasingly error-prone) Trinidadians, and when it was over, Port of Spain was like a mortuary — except for the tiny locker room where the Americans celebrated.

I want to see that match again. More than once.

I am so pleased this website exists. I may well go back and get some other matches. I’m sure I will.

Anyway, check it out, at davebrett.com. Dave’s specialty is the NASL, but he also has scads of MLS and more than a few other games, including the women’s national team.