Often, some of the best games in an athlete’s career … are those in which he (or her) did not make an appearance.

Better yet? Those games in which he was not even invited to play.

The U.S. national soccer team played an international match tonight, against Ukraine in Cyprus, in which all accounts suggest the Americans were something between bad and awful.

(Here are the New York Times player ratings for the match, and this is what espn.com came up with.)

The winners?

Those who were not with the team.

That would include the Major League Soccer-based players, led by Landon Donovan, Michael Bradley, Omar Gonzalez and Graham Zusi. All of those guys became more valuable as the 2-0 loss to Ukraine progressed.

By the end, Those Not in Cyprus bulked larger in the mind’s eye than they had at kickoff, two hours before.

Never underestimate the damage done to nearly everyone involved in a decisive defeat. The stink of failure adheres to everyone involved.

This is particularly true in sports which rarely play more than one match in a week. Football, soccer, for example.

To their credit, most athletes would rather be at any game, their self-belief strong enough to convince them they would make a difference.

However, by the end of this match, it is safe to assume most of the MLS-based Americans with designs on going to the World Cup in Brazil, this spring, were happy they were not around for Ukraine 2, USA 0.

They had nothing to do with it.

Several Europe-based Yanks probably played themselves out of the World Cup. The defenders Oguchi Onyewu, John Brooks and Edgar Castillo, to name three.

The midfielders Sacha Kljestan and Alejandro Bedoya, too.

And toss in Clint Dempsey.. He has been out of form for most of a year now, beginning from his final days with Tottenham Hotspur on right through his nine games (with one goal) for the Seattle Sounders and his seven games (without a goal) on loan to the English club Fulham.

Is he hurt? Is he an old 30 (31, next week)? Is he Just Done?

He likely will go to Brazil. But he has to emerge from this funk if he is going to be useful. At all. (Not to compare him to anyone named, say, Landon Donovan, but has Landon ever gone nine months doing, essentially, nothing?)

Of course, it is true soccer is a team game, and one player outing cannot be isolated among the performances of those around him.

But now we’re back to the stink of defeat. It covers everyone.

Goalkeepers sometimes can avoid being sprayed with skunk juice, and that would seem to be the case for Tim Howard, who got his hands on both shots that eventually ended as goals — via a deflection-putback by a second attacker.

Everyone else? They would have been better off not to be in Larnaca. American fans tonight certainly think more highly of Donovan, Bradley, Gonzalez, Zusi — and anyone else who was not there.