Bayern were favorites, but a winning goal by retiring MLS star Landon Donovan gave his band of All-Stars a 2-1 victory. Although this fixture offered no tangible significance aside from pure entertainment, it was a big step for Major League Soccer to enhance its stateside popularity and international respectability.

North American major sports have so many alternatives that the other continents simply don’t have at their disposal. Another type of football is about to dominate the American sports landscape, but there’s no denying that MLS’ fanfare is growing.

As part of Donovan’s retirement announcement, he emphasized how important the fans are in keeping the trend of soccer’s ascent in the USA, per CBS Sports:

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But No. 10 is the most special. It is the playmaker’s jersey, the jersey worn by a team’s soul and pulse and engine. It is the jersey worn by the star who can sprinkle magic at any moment. Pelé wore No. 10. Diego Maradona wore No. 10. Lionel Messi wears No. 10. Neymar wears No. 10.

For much of the past eight years, Landon Donovan wore No. 10 for the United States national team. It was fitting: Donovan, more than any other player in American soccer history, was his country’s heartbeat. He worked wonders with the ball, to be sure, but it was always more than that with Donovan. He did not just shine for the United States; he guided it.

On Thursday, Donovan, 32, announced that he would retire at the end of the Major League Soccer season. Understandably, this immediately prompted a slew of retrospectives and discussion about how Donovan will be remembered by soccer fans, with opinions covering his breakout performance in the 2002 World Cup to his seminal goal in the 2010 World Cup to his stunning, if somewhat abrupt, separation from the national team in the weeks before this year’s tournament in Brazil.

In truth, it cannot be so simple. Donovan has long been the face of American soccer and, like Michael Jordan in basketball, he will remain one of its icons even in retirement. His legacy is one of originality, of experimentation; he was a trailblazer, but by necessity. Donovan did not follow any one path to mainstream sports stardom in the United States, but that was, at least in part, because there was no obvious path for a soccer player to follow.

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Teams have taken 221 shots on direct free kicks or off shots set up by direct free kicks. TruMedia, a soccer stats supplier to ESPN, has developed a model, based on club soccer data from Opta, to predict the probability of any shot going in, according to its location and other variables. That model predicted that those 221 shots should have yielded 21 goals. But just 11 have gone in the net.

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Intuitively, it’s not hard to see why. Unlike basketball and hockey, where global talent is concentrated in a relatively small number of countries, soccer is a sport played at a high level across a much wider and more diverse set of locales. Talent is then naturally more diluted at the international level. The most important club soccer leagues also lack North American-style salary caps, so the richest club teams are (checkbooks willing) free to accumulate a far greater amount of talent than any national team can.

I went to the spreadsheets to settle this debate, and, based on my calculations, the conventional wisdom is indeed wise — to a certain extent. The top club teams in the world as a group are superior to the national teams in this year’s World Cup field. But even so, teams that are the cream of the international crop are not as far behind their club-level cousins as managers like Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger would have you believe.

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According to Metro, Madrid is looking to sell the 27-year-old German midfielder, who has endured an injury-plagued 18 months.

Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers is said to be keen on bolster the defensive side of his midfield, and Khedira, with his wealth of experience playing for Madrid and the German international side, will be an excellent addition for the Reds.

Khedira could be sold for £15 million ($25.5 million). Chelsea and Manchester United are also said to be keeping tabs on the player, although Liverpool are favorites to sign him.

Here is an Associated Press article on Germany-Ghana match.

Germany Looking to Avoid 2nd-game Slump in Brazil

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“I would like to apologize to my fans, teammates, coaches, marketing partners and the entire US Soccer and Seattle Reign FC communities for my involvement in a highly unfortunate incident this past weekend,” Solo said in a post on her Facebook page Thursday.

Solo, the national team goalkeeper and a two-time Olympic gold-medal winner, entered a not-guilty plea in court Monday. She faces two counts of fourth-degree domestic violence assault.

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The Los Angeles Galaxy star is featured in a new Neutrogena Men commercial where he answers questions peppered at him while he’s juggling the soccer ball.

A few things we learned from this:

1. Landon Donovan is incredibly good at juggling a soccer ball

OK this might be obvious as most professional soccer players are very good at juggling soccer balls. But it’s still impressive to see how long he can do this while being distracted and not drop the ball ever.*

(*We don’t know how many takes this took to be fair.)

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It was the best 45 minutes by anyone in an American uniform in ages. Mexico Coach Miguel Herrera went even further.

“Bradley,” he would say afterward, “looked as if he was the best player in the world.”

Two games into this World Cup, that Bradley has yet to show up.

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On a night when Jurgen Klinsmann needed everything and more from the 32-year-old to help stifle Cristiano Ronaldo and a desperate Portugal side, Jones somehow delivered more than his head coach could have ever hoped for in a 2-2 draw that left the Americans a result (or a little luck) away from the knockout stage.

And for all his tireless work in the midfield, it was a moment of offensive brilliance that Jones will be remembered for long after the US leave the banks of the Amazon. Down 1-0 in the 64th minute, he latched onto a loose ball at the top of the box then thundered a right-footed shot that curled inside the far post as Portugal goalkeeper Beto watched helplessly, feet rooted to the turf.

Tie game. Momentum shift. Perhaps even goal of the tournament so far.

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