Wow. I would have loved to see this match live. As it turned out, we didn’t chase around Southern California searching out one of the handful of sites showing the game on closed-circuit TV. Eating dinner with family seemed like a much better idea.

So there we were in the ridiculous position of peeking over at American football on ABC … because ABC at least was running a crawl that had World Cup scores updated every few minutes.

And just watching the score roll over — 1-0 Honduras, 1-1, 2-1 U.S., 3-1 U.S., 3-2 U.S. … end of match. Not even knowing, till later, that Honduras missed a penalty in the 87th minute and, well, all the rest of the wacky events we didn’t see because the United States’ 3-2 victory over Honduras wasn’t televised anywhere. A result that puts the U.S. into the World Cup for the sixth consecutive finals.

Not that it annoyed me, or anything, but it was the first time since 1981 that I failed to see (in person or via television) the match that decided the U.S. national team’s World Cup fate. (Saw it myself, in 1985, 1989, 1997, saw it on television in 2001 and 2005.)

And tonight’s match? From what I could tell from every highlights reel I could find …

–Conor Casey, what was that about? Two goals from the big lug … who never had managed even one goal for the national team before. Sure, he has been in good form with the Colorado Rapids most of the current Major League Soccer season. But two goals in a road match, at Honduras? Didn’t see that coming.

–Landon Donovan. We have decided he is the best field player in the history of American soccer, right? The discussion is closed. Landon is No. 1. The End. Second-best field player is open to debate.  Eric Wynalda, John Harkes, Claudio Reyna, Clint Dempsey. You all can go to a corner and figure it out. But No. 1 is done. Landon Donovan … the guy who threaded the pass to Casey that resulted in the second goal … and the man who channeled David Beckham (at his best) on the third (and eventually decisive) goal by bending a 25-yard restart over the end of a Honduras defensive wall and into the upper-right corner of the net. Exquisite.

–Tim Howard. Some nice saves there, Timmy. Now I won’t even feel annoyed when you win the Honda Award later this month … for being prominent in the English Premier League, as opposed to doing great things for the national side.

–Clint Dempsey. Not at the match. Not there. And the team scores three goals at Honduras, which had outscored the rest of the opposition 12-2 at home before tonight. Just sayin’, Clint. You may not be The Man you and your apologists believe you are.

–And Bob Bradley. Your critics, and they are numerous, now realize they are stuck with you through the World Cup. For better and, maybe, for worse.  But your team went 2-1-2 on the road in qualifying, and no one else did, and that’s why the U.S. leads the group with one match left, at home vs. Costa Rica.

Looked like a great match. I wish I had seen it live.

It will be remembered for two things: 1) the match that clinched a World Cup berth; and 2) the match  almost none of us saw live.