The United States got outstanding play out of its veterans and youngsters in Korea. They may have played better games here and there, but in the caldron of World Cup competition, a consistent level was attained.
NOT SO LONG AGO, American fans would have cringed at the sight of Tony Sanneh striding up the right flank screaming for the ball.
Powerful and athletic but not supremely secure, Sanneh as often as not would be caught upfield and forced to foul. Or he'd be befuddled by a tricky Mexican forward or evasive Honduran winger. Or he'd hit a 50-50 ball into a pocket of defenders.
For years, Coach Bruce Arena had referred to him as a stopgap measure, a former forward converted to midfield in MLS and plugged in at right back for lack of anybody better.
''I've taken a lot of flack, but people forget I am a forward,'' said Sanneh. ''When you move positions, you do OK, but it's not natural. There's a lot of thinking that goes along.''
At a World Cup, the sights and sounds and speeds whirl past at a digital pace. Thinking can be anathema. Raw talent isn't enough, so anticipation and reaction and experience are vital. So is confidence.
Forged by friendlies and other trials by fire, those elements emerged in the performances of many U.S. players. When they had to be at or near their best, they responded.
Eddie Pope, Claudio Reyna, Landon Donovan, John O'Brien, Brad Friedel and Sanneh all hit their U.S. zeniths during the competition. Pablo Mastroeni, Frankie Hejduk, Brian McBride, Gregg Berhalter and Eddie Lewis were solid as well.
They may have played better games here and there, but in the caldron of World Cup competition, a consistent level was attained.
''It's been incredible,'' said Friedel, who survived a neck-and-neck duel with Kasey Keller to play every minute. ''We have had a great ride. The satisfying thing is we can go home knowing that we probably could have gone a little further. It's frustrating but satisfying knowing we never once got played off the park over here.''
Individually, there were peak performances. Collectively, the results were historic.
In five games, the United States won two, lost two and tied one. It scored seven goals and conceded seven. Yet at a World Cup pitted against three European teams, one of the co-hosts and a bitter regional rival, a .500 mark is not average.
REYNA REIGNS. The gifts of Reyna have long been known: marvelous passer, hard to dispossess, great vision, smooth skills.
Qualms about him focused on his grit, determination and willingness to push the throttle as well as ease back on it.
Passive at times in a U.S. jersey, Reyna brought ferocity and toughness with him to Asia. He tied for the team lead in fouls committed with 10, won a lot of aerial balls against Mexico and Germany and set the tone in the first round when he flattened South Korean midfielder Yoo Sang Chul.
''The last couple of years playing in England and Scotland, he's developed a lot more aggression in his game,'' said O'Brien, who was paired in the middle with Reyna for two games. ''He makes it tough for the other teams. Physically, he's strong, he's quick and can read the game well.''
Reyna's charge up the flank to set up the first goal against Mexico brought to mind the kind of runs he occasionally made in the mid-1990s.
He belted in a great goal against Mexico at RFK Stadium in 1995, sparking images of a single player who embodied the skill of Diego Maradona and the power of Lothar Matthaeus.
But when Reyna was decked by Jens Jeremies in the opening minutes of the France '98 opener against Germany, his fortitude came into question.
He's evolved into a craftier two-way player instead of a supremo No. 10 lurking just behind the forwards or a coast-to-coast catalyst like Matthaeus or Zinedine Zidane.
When the U.S. coaches decided to use two central midfielders rather than the single holding midfielder that Chris Armas had been, Reyna had the support, freedom and flexibility to flourish. The coaches had slots into which they could move players in and out.
''It's an amazing thing to come in and play alongside John O'Brien or Claudio Reyna, players who make your job a lot easier,'' said Mastroeni, who was paired with O'Brien in the middle when Reyna played wide right (Mexico) or as a true attacking midfielder (Germany). In midfield, especially, the cohesion among the players overwhelmed the individual, disparate talents of opponents from Portugal and Mexico.
At the hub was Reyna. Without him scraping the ball free, holding it as teammates moved into position, and finding the open man, the talents of O'Brien, Mastroeni, Beasley, Lewis and Donovan would have been muted.
THE KEEPER FILES. One of the few forgotten men at the World Cup was Keller.
Arena may have been planning to split them in the first two games, which was widely reported yet never confirmed. Once the Americans beat Portugal and then tied South Korea largely because of Friedel's brilliance, Keller had no forum in which to object.
When pressed as to the reason he stuck with Friedel, Arena mentioned footwork. Friedel is not only better than Keller at kicking balls off the ground under pressure, he's also nimbler saving shots with his feet.
Arena made the right choice. Friedel repelled several wicked shots against South Korea, including low blasts he got his gloves to. Those long arms can reach down as well as to the sides.
Saving penalties against South Korea and Poland rekindled memories of the 1990 NCAA Division I final four. With Friedel in goal, UCLA won the title despite not scoring a goal in its semifinal and the final. The Bruins won both penalty-kick tiebreakers.
''I wouldn't know about how to go beating him,'' said Joe-Max Moore, who was a member of that UCLA team. ''You just have to pick a corner and hit a great penalty. He's got the quickness and length about him. His arms are six inches longer than most people his size.''
Friedel might have come out to challenge on the free kick Ahn Jung Hwan headed in, and he scraped through a few rough moments.
Could Keller have done as well? Possibly. Did Friedel rise to the occasion? Definitely. Was far too much attention paid to which of two excellent keepers would play? Absolutely.
NO-FEAR FACTOR. Are Donovan and Beasley and Mastroeni and O'Brien and Clint Mathis and Josh Wolff too young or too naive or too dumb to tremble on the world stage? All of them – at 25 or younger – were neophytes at the highest level.
They expect to succeed because they've succeeded before, be it in MLS or at the Olympics or on a youth national team or in Europe. A higher level is a steeper challenge, not an impassable barrier.
''[U.S. under-17 coach] John Ellinger told us we shouldn't fear anybody,'' said Donovan before the quarterfinal with Germany. ''Why can't we beat them? We're just playing. It's a game. Simple as that. We have fun and things happen.''
Donovan saw a goal disallowed when he hip-checked Polish defender Arkadiusz Glowacki just before he headed the ball in. He barked in anger at the referee's decision. Such youthful bravado, when mixed with the savvy of Reyna, Pope, McBride and Sanneh, made for a potent mix.
Except against the whirlwind pressure applied by South Korea, the United States proved it could whip the ball up the field or keep it under wraps.
By snuffing Mexico in midfield and then denying frantic attempts to get the ball back, the Americans accomplished what Ecuador, Italy and Croatia couldn't do in the first round.
And nailing three past Portugal in a single half doesn't happen often.
Donovan confessed that poor decisions had cost him. He hit a Reyna lob first-time against South Korea, and it dribbled embarrassingly to the keeper.
''I should have brought that ball down. I had the time and space,'' he agonized.
Against Germany, Donovan hesitated when the ball was played behind the defense by another Reyna beauty, and he took the ball wide to an angle filled by the frame and wrath of Oliver Kahn.
Yet most of Donovan's decisions on when to come forward, when to close opponents down, when to play simple, and when to be bodacious were correct. As was Arena's decision to get him on the field regardless of position.
A knee injury to Beasley took his searing pace out of the U.S. attacking arsenal. Also missing was his relentless work covering the flank and tucking inside to win tackles.
''I can be feisty and be like a little ant running around,'' said Beasley. ''I just try to do what I can.''
And like an ant, which can carry 10 times its body weight, the lightest player in the tournament at 126 pounds toted more than his share of the load.
TONY, TONY. A few months before the World Cup, Sanneh's teammates at Nuremberg gave him the business.
''One day a couple of guys were laughing and I said, 'What's up?''' he recalled. ''They said, 'If I was 30 years old and had your speed, I'd be pretty disappointed with my career.' I said, 'What?' They told me, 'There are world-class guys who are billionaires who aren't as fast with a lot less skill.'''
Well, maybe not billionaires, but Sanneh took the criticism seriously. When Coach Klaus Augenthaler moved him from an outside defensive position to the middle, his boldness and confidence grew.
''When I got moved to a position at Nuremberg where I was kind of a leader, I realized I can't under-sell myself,'' he says. ''I'm as good as anybody else.''
His liabilities had been exploited during the Hexagonal, but at the World Cup his attributes glowed.
He was one of several question marks in the back line. Jeff Agoos succumbed to errors and injury. Hejduk played a few decent games at left back and then moved to midfield, with Berhalter smoothly taking over.
Pope played strongly from the first minute; Sanneh had more shaky moments yet improved as the tournament unfolded. Sanneh did get beaten on Michael Ballack's header in the Germany game and on Poland's second goal. But he stood up to clever dribblers and towering jumpers.
The cross Sanneh hit to McBride for a spectacular goal against Portugal was just one of several fruitful raids up the right.
He pulled a ball back from the byline against Poland that McBride fanned on, and he sparked a sequence in the Mexico game that ended with O'Brien drilling a low dart just wide.
The transformation from scorer to destroyer had been completed, but with a twist: As Sanneh's defending improved, his attacking instincts returned.
''The last couple games, I felt that I could go forward,'' he said after the loss to Germany ended his World Cup. ''Against Mexico, I made some runs and the first half against Poland was much like the game today.
''Maybe I finally got comfortable.''
And not a moment too soon.
By Soccer America Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney in Ulsan