I hope you saw it for yourself because words get real small and inadequate when they try to describe the bigger things that sometimes overwhelm us and make us feel humble and elevated at the same time. These things often happen in nature, but sometimes on the pitch, and that’s what happened yesterday when Alex Morgan headed a beautiful loping cross from the right wing off the foot of Heather O’Reilly to defeat Canada in the Olympic semifinals, 4-3.

The goal came in the 123rd minute, with 30 seconds left in the second and final overtime before the game would have been decided by the lottery of a penalty kick shootout. Calling the game one of the greatest soccer matches ever doesn’t do it justice.

This wasn’t the Cold War-infused drama of West Germany versus Hungary in the 1954 World Cup (West Germany, 3-2), or even stoical England making a last stand for Queen and country versus Brazil in the 1970 World Cup (Brazil, 1-0). This was Ali versus Frazier in Manila. This was humans, women, going to the limit of endurance in search of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. I read somewhere that grace is the spiritual component of effort. This, I dare say, was that.

“Moments like this are what make sports so cool,” said American forward Abby Wambach.

Indeed they are.

***

I’ve been enamored of this soccer team for a long time, probably going back to its 1996 Olympic gold medal in Atlanta. The team had already won the first-ever World Cup in 1991. But in Atlanta, lifted by the charisma, style and camera-readiness of Mia Hamm, Christine Lilly, Julie Foudy, Shannon MacMillan, Brandy Chastain and other first-and-second generation stars, it was earning the attention of more than soccer moms and the daughters they’d ferry to youth soccer games every weekend.

The women played fiercely and fairly. A sense of sisterhood prevailed even in battle.

Network TV came on board, and a fledgling pro league was formed. (The Women’s United Soccer Association has since folded and been reconstituted in varying degrees over the years.) I was a fan of the female pros. The soccer wasn’t great, but the spirit was contagious.

The women played fiercely and fairly. A sense of sisterhood prevailed even in battle. That spirit spread first to the face-painted sprites who would show up to league games and to Team USA international matches with imaginations stirred by the catlike Mia Hamm prowling the field. Then it went around the world, inspiring teams as close as Canada and as far away as Korea, for whom the U.S. women’s national team was the standard.

The team, which has existed as a cohesive group with cellular memory going back to its roots, thanks to a system of apprenticeship, mentorship, and what feels to be an organic sense of purpose and togetherness (that sisterhood thing again), has been a political entity and an empowering force without ever declaring or declaiming. It has embodied the purest form of leadership—the kind that happens by example. In the process, it became more than just a soccer team; it became a movement. Which is why, for my money, the U.S. women’s national soccer team has been the greatest sports team assembled in the past two decades.

Not that the women need any lofty claims to greatness. The team’s record speaks for itself, having also won the 1999 World Cup and gold medals in the 1996, 2004 and 2008 Olympics. But those are just the stats. On the field they play with a reckless abandon and a flair for the dramatic that also makes them one of the most entertaining sports spectacles in the world.

Who can forget digging their nails into their armrests as the 1999 championship match against China before 90,000 fans at the Rose Bowl came down to Brandy Chastain’s final penalty kick. Or the way they fought back against Brazil in the 2011 World Cup semifinals, when the great Abby Wambach scored a goal in the 122nd minute to put the game into penalty kicks, which the U.S. won only to lose to Japan in anther thrilling match in the final. A match that, for as hard fought as it was, nobody seemed to begrudge Japan winning in that year of tsunami.

But all the thrills over the years didn’t prepare or compare to Monday’s epic. I’ve never seen anything like it. The U.S. never led the game until they won it. Three times they were down and desperate and three times they fought back and evened the score. Every time the U.S. thought it had climbed the mountain, the Canadian women scored a goal to go ahead. When the task looked too great, the mountain too high, the body too battered and time running out, the American women pulled something from that mysterious place called will and found a way to win.

Let these women remind you of our greatness, remind you that we can still put Rovers on Mars and a team on the pitch that shows who we really are.

The sturm and drang of a referee’s bad call that put the U.S. in the position to tie the game is simply that, a tempest in a teapot. Referees make many mistakes throughout the course of every game, and it’s what teams do with those mistakes that matters. When the Canadians committed a handball foul in the penalty box after a controversial free kick was called in the U.S.’s favor, Abbie Wambach clinically stepped to the moment and buried the shot.

The Canadians feel they were robbed, but over time they’ll come to appreciate this game for what it was. And it’s worth noting that the U.S. team never whined as burly Canadian Melissa Tancredi, who should have been thrown out five times over, mugged them all game long while the referee let her slide. Team USA kept their heads and then, with less than a minute left, Alex Morgan used hers to win the game.

“I love you,” Abby Wambach screamed at Morgan after the goal. “I think I’m in love with you.”

We know the feeling.

***

What all the post-match analysis won’t tell you is this: Midway into the second half, the U.S. went to an attacking formation with three forwards, four midfielders and only three defenders. It was a tremendous gamble, risking going down two goals, to get the equalizing goal. More remarkably, when they did tie the game, the U.S. stayed in that formation. This was an even riskier gamble—to win during the match, not settle for a tie and penalty kicks.

These ladies know only one direction—forward.

“This is what we’ve been working toward ever since we lost to Japan,” Wambach said after the semifinal match.

They may not win. Japan is good, and these ladies are tired. Their best shooter, Wambach, has clearly lost a step and looks injured. She might not have any bullets left. But it doesn’t matter.

Win or lose, let their spirit remind you that things aren’t altogether hopeless here in this dark time when cynicism and greed have clogged too many of our arteries. For too long, it’s felt like we don’t love like we used to, get each others backs like we used to. Let these women remind you of our greatness, remind you that we can still put Rovers on Mars and a team on the pitch that shows who we really are, who we will be again when we climb out of this darkness. And we will.

These women make me believe that and I love them for it.