Hop on the bandwagon while seats are still available. United States Soccer is the talk of the sports world (or should be) now that they wrapped up their first-ever trip to a world final in improbable fashion on Wednesday. It goes without saying though that many didn’t believe the U.S. had much of a chance against the best soccer team on the planet before the two faced off in the FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa.

Against Spain, the U.S. was matched against a team riding a world record 15-game winning streak, one that had not suffered a loss over the stretch of their last 35 matches. In short, the doubters were proven wrong to some degree. And Team USA saved themselves the embarrassment of explaining why they were even in the semifinals in the first place.

That the U.S., ranked No. 14 in the world, managed to back their way into this final-four matchup against No. 1 Spain was a miracle in itself. The fact that they backed it up with a 2-0 win to advance to the Confed Cup Final should go a long way in creating some excitement back here in the States before next year’s World Cup rolls around.

But should fans expect these types of wins on a regular basis? It’s unlikely that they will.

Despite how they got there, the U.S. showed signs of being a worthy opponent. But by capitalizing on two of just nine shots, the American team played with its back against the wall most of the way. Yet somehow it worked. Goalkeeper Tim Howard received plenty of help from teammates to help hold off Spain, who went for 29 shots on goal and 17 corner kicks.

As unnerving a sport as soccer can be, where every touch on every possession could play a deciding role in the outcome of any game, there was a feeling early on that whoever scored first will have netted the game winner no matter how much time remained.

For the American team, that came in the 27th minute when 19-year old Jozy Altidore peeled a defender from his back and sent a shot that deflected off the keeper’s hand, which then bounced off the left post and into the goal to give Spain it first deficit of the tournament. They never recovered.

As the numbers showed, Spain proceeded to miss out on opportunities time and time again throughout the remainder of the game. Even so, with each attempt at heckling the U.S. goalkeeper with shots you got the feeling that they would somehow find a way to eventually knot the score. That was until the 74th minute when the game all but came to an end once Clint Dempsey cleaned up on a deflected Landon Donovan shot for the underdog’s second goal of the game.

Such a sweet victory for a team that has managed only a handful through the years. This moment in U.S. Soccer ranks right up there among the brightest in the program’s history, alongside the likes of the 1950 World Cup win over England (1-0), 1994 World Cup win over Columbia (2-1), 1998 Gold Cup win over No. 1-ranked Brazil (1-0) and the 2002 World Cup wins over both Portugal (3-2) and Mexico (2-0).

Spain advanced to the Confed Cup semifinals by sweeping through group play (against South Africa, Iraq and New Zealand) behind the efforts of David Villa and Fernando Torres. Both lined up against the Americans having already scored three goals each. They left the pitch after hardly playing a factor.

The U.S. squad went a lousy 1-2 in group play, dropping matches to Brazil and Italy by a combined 6-1 margin. They advanced to elimination play, over the Italians, based on an improbable goal differential tiebreaker after Italy lost by three goals to Brazil and the American team defeated Egypt by three goals a couple days earlier.

Take a deep breath and process that for a moment. For now, the U.S. is assured its best finish in the Confed Cup after previously wrapping up third-place efforts. They’ll meet up in the championship game against the winner of Thursday’s Brazil-South Africa match on Sunday at 2 p.m.