Germany 1, United States 0.

Didn’t matter. Will hardly be remembered, going forward. I promise.

Inartistic, sure. All the water on the pitch. Another of those rain games. (Has Brazil set some sort of record for those?) A bit scary for U.S. fans, of course.

Some questions:

Brad Davis is one of the best 11 U.S. players? (How can a guy actually disappear from a soccer field for most of 45 minutes? Were some laws of space and time broken, before he was mercifully replaced?)

Graham Zusi is the best corner-taker on the American team? Wow.

So, it’s true; the U.S. team still cannot hold the ball for 4-5 consecutive passes against strong opposition?

And why Omar Gonzales at centre-back instead of a Klinsy pet, John Brooks? (Because Brooks is left-footed, and Omar was moving into the right half of the central defense? I think it was more Jurgen Klinsmann thinking: “If things go off the rails … like, Die Mannschaft score three or four and we don’t advance … we can blame it on the MLS guy, sted my insta-Yank Brooks”.)

Doesn’t matter, really, because …

Portugal beat Ghana 2-1.

The U.S. is in the final 16.

A couple of other games come to mind. World Cup matches involving the U.S. which almost immediately were forgotten. Games I attended and barely remember.

Specifically, 1) Poland 3-1 over the U.S. in the final group game of 2002. Didn’t matter, because South Korea bailed out the U.S. with a late goal to beat Portugal, and the Yanks got into last 16 and then beat Mexico 2-0, which everyone remembers and 2) Romania 1-0 over the Yanks in the final group game in 1994, which dropped the U.S. to third but four third-place teams advanced, back then, and then the U.S. played Brazil in the 1-0 final-16 match in Stanford, where Leonardo broke the jaw of Tab Ramos (which put him in the hospital for three months), another match that U.S. soccer fans (much fewer, back then) remember.

Germany 1-0, 2014, will be forgotten almost immediately, aside perhaps by those who were there, because of the flooding around Recife. (The National’s correspondent was unable to get to the match, trapped in his hotel.)

It was a bit interesting when the Germans took a 1-0 lead and then Ghana levelled against Portugal, because one more goal by Germany and two more by Ghana would have put Ghana in the final 16. But it didn’t happen, and Ghana didn’t even win, so we all move on.

I did not believe the U.S. would escape the group, and I wrote a few weeks back that I hoped they did not, so that Klinsmann could be manuevered out of his job. But now that they are in the final 16 …

It is the next match U.S. fans will remember. Well, in addition to the victory over Ghana and the tie with Portugal.

Belgium was the trendy pre-World Cup pick to be a “surprise” in Brazil, but they were the “surprise” team of so many people that they lost that underdog cachet, and if you saw any of their matches in Group H … which was clearly the weakest in the World Cup, you are not at all frightened by the Belgians. A lot of great individuals — Eden Hazard, Vincent Kompany, Romelu Lukaku … and here is the roster … but they are another of those “the sum of their parts is not equal to the whole” kind of teams. A telling stat: Belgium’s 23 guys make more money, via club salary, on average, than any team in the World Cup, yet they struggled to beat Algeria (2-1), Russia (1-0) and South Korea (1-0) scoring the decisive goal in the 78th minute (or later) in all three matches.

So, get ready for the Tuesday game. That is one you will remember.