The Reckoning in Washington

On This Day in 2004, the U.S. Proved Its Dominance Over Panama and Clinched a Path to the Final Qualifying Round

The mathematics had become almost absurdly favorable by Wednesday evening. The United States could advance to the World Cup's final qualifying round with a victory, or even with a draw combined with specific results elsewhere. Yet Bruce Arena harbored no illusions about complacency. The Americans had scraped away from Panama City just five weeks earlier, rescued by Cobi Jones's desperation goal in injury time from a match they nearly surrendered. That memory—the chaos averted only by fortune—made this return engagement at RFK Stadium feel like a reckoning rather than a formality.

"Qualifying is all about results," Arena would later reflect. "You don't get them and you don't go to the World Cup."

The interim five weeks had transformed the American team's confidence into something more durable than hope. An 11-game unbeaten streak stretched behind them, and more importantly, they had demonstrated, in the cauldron of Estadío Cuscatlán just four days prior, that they could impose their quality on hostile ground through professional execution rather than theatrical rescue. Eddie Johnson's immediate emergence as a prolific goalscorer had injected a new dimension into their attack. Landon Donovan, wearing the captain's armband for the first time, had absorbed responsibility rather than buckled beneath it. The young roster had aged perceptibly in a matter of days.

Panama arrived in Washington with nothing resembling its tactical flexibility. Desperate for victory to maintain any mathematical hope against Jamaica and the rest of the advancing pack, the Panamanians would be forced to venture forward, to abandon the defensive solidity that sometimes stifles American attacking prowess. In a stadium where nearly 20,000 supporters would fill the lower bowl—a comfortable, familiar setting—the conditions aligned for something the Americans had rarely achieved in this qualifying cycle: dominance from start to finish, without requiring rescue or late heroics.

Arena deployed the same attacking architecture that had functioned so decisively in El Salvador. The message was unmistakable: the United States would not merely defend its qualification hopes but would announce its arrival as the region's undisputed heavyweight.

The opening minutes of the October 13 match confirmed what Arena had orchestrated. The Americans flooded forward with purposeful urgency, their passing patterns precise. The breakthrough arrived in the 21st minute, arriving not through individual brilliance but through the kind of accuracy that defines teams entering their prime. Josh Wolff, a forward whose career had been interrupted repeatedly by injury but who retained remarkable pace and vision, found space along the left flank and delivered a deep, curling pass into the penalty area. Donovan materialized at precisely the moment Wolff's cross arrived, and with a single elegant touch—a deflection more than a full swing—he redirected the ball past Gonzalez and into the lower left corner. The captain had announced his presence, but more significantly, the American team had announced theirs.

The second goal arrived in the 57th minute, this time the product of Kerry Zavagnin's perfectly weighted through-pass that caught Panama's defense fractured and unprepared. Donovan collected the ball, beat the advancing Gonzalez, and with defenders converging from multiple angles, he produced a sliding shot that found the far corner. Two goals in 36 minutes, and Panama had begun to collapse not from individual errors but from the accumulated weight of American superiority. With the scoreline now comfortable, the shape of the match had entirely transformed. Panama no longer had the tactical flexibility required to meet their desperation. They had committed resources forward seeking an equalizer; now they were exposed to the counterattacking devastation that speed and organization could inflict upon tired, retreating defenders.

Arena made his decisive substitution in the 65th minute, and what followed would define the evening in the minds of everyone witnessing it. Eddie Johnson—the 20-year-old sensation who had announced his arrival just four days earlier with that perfectly timed header against El Salvador—entered the match for Wolff with the game already decided, but far from finished. Four minutes later, after a Carlos Bocanegra deep cross, Johnson shook away from defender Carlos Rivera and flicked a header back across to the far post. His positioning, his timing, his understanding of where the goalkeeper's attention lay—all of it spoke to a young player operating with a composure that seemed impossible given his inexperience. Goals in consecutive appearances, both arriving within minutes of entering a match.

The moment that followed would etch itself into American soccer history.

In the 84th minute, Johnson rose to meet another Bocanegra cross, this one the culmination of a three-pass sequence orchestrated by Eddie Lewis and McBride deep in Panama's penalty area. The ball descended at precisely the angle and height at which Johnson's forehead could redirect it with minimal adjustment. Three minutes later, Johnson completed what no American substitute had accomplished before: a hat-trick in a World Cup qualifying match. This time, substitute Pablo Mastroeni initiated from deeper in the field, laid it off to Lewis, who delivered the final pass to Johnson. The movement was synchronized, the execution flawless, and Johnson's side-footed finish—his third goal in 17 minutes—sent the crowd into the kind of jubilation reserved for moments when generational talent announces itself conclusively.

"This is awesome. It's what you dream of - maybe dream of just getting on the field for a few minutes or maybe scoring a goal. But three... You don't dream of that," Johnson said. An own goal in the 90th minute provided the final punctuation, and as the scoreboard read 6-0, it felt less like a victory in a qualifying match and more like a coronation.

The magnitude of what had unfolded extended far beyond the match itself. With the victory, the United States had clinched advancement to the six-nation final round beginning in February with a fifth consecutive World Cup appearance now guaranteed. Donovan had now scored twice as captain and had emerged as the creative fulcrum around which American soccer's ambitions rotated. His two goals represented his 20th and 21st for the national team—the accumulating evidence of a player whose decision-making, timing, and creativity had evolved from promising to genuinely elite. Yet in scoring three times in 17 minutes off the bench, Johnson had stolen the narrative.

For Johnson, the evening carried implications that transcended even qualifying success. He had now scored four goals in two appearances, entered both matches as a substitute, and demonstrated against increasingly uncertain defenses a combination of physical gifts and technical precision that suggested European clubs monitoring his progress had sound reason for their attention.

Yet the victory possessed equal significance for the team's larger arc. The Americans had demonstrated that their success need not depend on the dramatic late rescues that had defined their early qualifying campaign. When required to impose their technical superiority on a team without the resources to resist them, Arena's squad had responded with clinical precision. They had extended their unbeaten streak to 12 matches—the longest in program history. They had increased their unbeaten run against regional opponents to 28 games.

Most significantly, they had eliminated the variables. With only Jamaica remaining on their qualifying schedule, and advancement already clinched, the final match rendered inconsequential. "You don't have to worry about other results, you don't want to worry about getting a result in the sixth game. If you can finish it... You finish it," Donovan said afterward. The road to Germany had now progressed to the final round of qualifying, scheduled to start in February.