Dempsey sealed the victory, scoring from 6 yards when he pounced on Landon Donovan’s cross, which had bounced off Gerard Pique and the foot of Sergio Ramos.

“There will ups and downs in any cycle,” U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati said. “I think this tournament makes that point very clearly. Tonight was a very big up.”

The U.S. opened the tournament with a 3-1 loss to world champion Italy, then was outclassed by South American champ Brazil in a 3-0 defeat. The Americans advanced over the Italians on the second tiebreaker — total goals — only by beating Egypt 3-0 on Sunday as Brazil defeated the Azzurri by the same score.

“Three games ago I think it would have been impossible to think about a night like tonight,” Howard said. “We’ve had our fair share of critics, but we stood up and took it on the chin and kept going.”

While the U.S. women have won two world championships, the men have long been outsiders and didn’t even qualify for the showcase event between 1950 and ’90. This ranked alongside the upset of Brazil as one of their top wins, just below victories over England in the 1950 World Cup, Portugal and Mexico in the 2002 World Cup and Colombia in the 1994 World Cup.

Spain outshot the U.S. 29-9 in near-freezing conditions at the Free State Stadium, but Howard came up big every time he was needed.

“We knew we had to pick and choose our moments to go forward,” Dempsey said. “We’re happy with the result and we know we’re going to have our work cut out to get anything out of the final.”

The United States had lost its three previous matches against Spain, including 1-0 in an exhibition on June 4 last year at Santander. But the Americans were boosted by Bocanegra, who had been sidelined since injuring a hamstring during a World Cup qualifier on June 6. He played left back instead of central defense.

On this night, everything came together.

“This win is huge for American soccer,” Dempsey said. “This one is much sweeter because we were down and out, came back fighting.”

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