Few things captured Herculez Gomez’s experience growing up in a multicultural home quite like the United States-Mexico soccer rivalry.
Gomez can still vividly recall the look on his father’s face when Landon Donovan scored the second goal of the USMNT’s upset in the 2002 World Cup quarterfinals, Manuel in stunned silence that his beloved El Tri might actually lose.
His oldest son was in a giddier kind of disbelief. For Herculez, this was the moment when a career goal began to take on tangible form. Donovan was just one month older than he was. Maybe one day that could be him.