USA fans left gasping for more

JOHANNESBURG /// All these late-game heroics are leaving United States fans feeling wrung out. The more the Americans make everybody sweat at the World Cup, though, the better it is for the game back home. "We knew it was going to have more hype than ever before," said Sunil Gulati, the president of US Soccer. "But I don't think any of us predicted what the watercooler talk is."

Landon Donovan's stoppage time goal, with the Americans on the brink of elimination on Wednesday, brought shouts and sobs of joy in restaurants and office cubicles from coast to coast. Cheers erupted on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and even in White House auditoriums in Washington. More than six million people watched the match, a large audience by US football standards, and another large audience is expected for the last 16 match against Ghana tonight. Players have been flooded with congratulatory text messages, e-mails and posts on Facebook, the social networking site. When Tim Howard, the goalkeeper, got back to the team hotel and turned on the television, he saw David Wright, a star for baseball's New York Mets, wearing a Donovan jersey.

Even Spike Lee, the movie director, the arbiter of all things hip, sent Gulati a congratulatory e-mail. "It would be cool to be somewhere in some bar hanging out and experiencing it," Donovan said. "But I'm going to choose this [being in South Africa] over that." Much like the Olympics, the World Cup tends to attract casual fans and those who will get behind any team wearing USA on their chest. But their interest is often fleeting, and it tends to fade until the next World Cup rolls around.

"I don't think that's what this is," Gulati said. "I think we've turned some people on to the game." Part of the growing allure is the Americans' knack for scoring late to salvage a result. Donovan's goal that gave the United States a 1-0 victory over Algeria and sent the Americans to the last 16 was, without question, the most dramatic of the team's finishes. But Howard saved shot after shot in the closing minutes of the group-stage game against England. Against Slovenia, Michael Bradley levelled the game in the 82nd minute. Three minutes later, Maurice Edu had a goal controversially disallowed that would have won it.

In World Cup qualifying, Bradley's 90th-minute goal finished a 2-0 victory over Mexico; Jozy Altidore and Frankie Hejduk each scored in the last 15 minutes to gain a 2-2 draw at El Salvador; and Jonathan Bornstein's extra-time goal tied Costa Rica 2-2, knocking Costa Rica out of the World Cup and putting Honduras in. "We've definitely won a boring game before," Altidore said. "Actually, we would love to get back to that and win a very uneventful game."

The Americans have advanced to the quarter-finals only once since the first World Cup in 1930. They beat bitter rivals Mexico 2-0 eight years ago, then were eliminated after a 1-0 defeat to Germany. Some are looking ahead to the quarter-finals here, but Ghana is the team that knocked out the US in the group stage in 2006. "We're going to throw everything we can at them," Donovan said. * AP