On Friday night in Hartford, Connecticut, Landon Donovan will wear a United States jersey for the last time. At some point, Donovan will be substituted off and he will receive a raucous ovation as the fans celebrate the leading scorer and assist man in U.S. international history.

In the aftermath of the game, naysayers will gradually emerge. They’ll say Donovan never fulfilled his potential at the club level. They’ll say he wasn’t mentally tough enough. They’ll say he crumbled in the 2006 World Cup. And to some degree, they’ll be right. But in levying all of this criticism, they’ll run the risk of overshadowing a crucial reality: Landon Donovan is the best player in U.S. men’s national team history, and it’s not very close.

Donovan was always destined for American soccer G.O.A.T. status. There had been great young players before him and since, but none—aside from Freddy Adu—looked as promising when he arrived as the dynamic forward from California’s Inland Empire. In 1999, he won the Golden Ball at the FIFA U-17 World Cup. Less than a year later he made his USMNT debut in a friendly against Mexico, scoring a trademark goal against what would soon become his favorite opponent.

He then announced himself to the world at the 2002 World Cup, picking up the same Best Young Player Award that would go to future world-class players Lukas Podolski, Thomas Muller, and Paul Pogba in the subsequent Cups. After scoring a superb consolation goal versus Poland in the final group-stage match, Donovan notched his second goal of the tournament in the knockout stage against Mexico, burying El Tri with a surging run and confident header.

In the quarters against Germany, Donovan dazzled for 90 minutes, the best player on the pitch against the eventual tournament finalists. From that point forward, he became LANDON DONOVAN(!!) in U.S. soccer circles, and also became the first-ever American soccer player to become a household name across the country.

With something of the weight of the soccer-watching country on his shoulders, he hardly ever disappointed over the following decade. His most impressive achievement may have been that he was essentially the best player on the team for almost a decade. While his club form occasionally varied, he always brought it for the national team, aside from the disappointing showing in Germany in 2006 (where he was far from alone in his underachievement). In the ultimate mark of Donovan’s consistency, he scored three or more goals for the USMNT in 10 out of 12 years from 2002–2013, winning U.S. Player of the Year four times.

More memorable than Donovan’s steadiness, though, is the sheer number of breathtaking moments that he delivered. There were the goals of sublime quality, such as the quicksilver touch to set him free against Mexico in 2007.

Or the stunning hat trick in a friendly romp over Ecuador, highlighted by a first-minute screamer with his weaker foot.

But what will forever endure Donovan to U.S. supporters is his lengthy catalogue of big goals in big games, starting with that backbreaker against Mexico in South Korea.

After that came one of the technically best goals the U.S. has ever scored, and one that would be ten times more legendary had the Yanks hung on for the win against Brazil in the 2009 Confederations Cup final. In an astonishing nine-second counterattack, Donovan ripped Brazil to shreds on the strength of the qualities that will forever define his brilliance: pace, clever passing, composure on the ball, and clinical finishing. The perfectly weighted first-time pass to Charlie Davies; the searing run to somehow get beyond the impossibly rangy Ramires; the great first touch, and then the cool finish with his weaker foot. It was counterattacking perfection, and the type of sequence that no other American has ever dreamed of completing from start to finish.

One year later he reached his pinnacle in a masterful 2010 World Cup, in which he nearly single-handedly dragged the U.S. to the quarterfinals.

First came his cold-blooded rocket against Slovenia. With the U.S. just 45 minutes away from being at major risk of a second consecutive World Cup flop, Donovan slipped defender Bostjan Cesar, sized up his options in the area, and then smashed a shot from an acute angle right at goalkeeper Samir Handanovic’s face. The bold finish set the Yanks on course for a famous comeback victory, one that was only denied by a phantom foul call on Maurice Edu’s winner from a brilliant Donovan set piece.

Five days later, Donovan scored *that* goal, the instinctive stoppage-time winner that gave the U.S. first place in Group C and spurred soccer-related bedlam unlike anything the nation had ever seen. The finish was simple enough, but it was facilitated by two subtly excellent Donovan touches. First, the collection from Tim Howard’s throw that kept the move going at full pace, and then the nifty slide-rule pass into Jozy Altidore’s path.

And in the knockout stage against Ghana, he nailed a penalty to level against the Black Stars in the second half. For his supposed mental fragility, he was absolutely lethal from the penalty spot, scoring on every one of his 15 attempts for the national team, including an equalizer against Mexico in the 2007 Gold Cup final and a go-ahead strike against Italy in the 2009 Confederations Cup to go with this composed effort against Ghana.

Donovan’s final big-game masterpiece came in the 2011 Gold Cup final, when clever off-ball movement and a superb through ball from Clint Dempsey left him one-on-one against Alfredo Talavera. He took the opportunity with customary aplomb, firing the Americans two goals ahead against Mexico.

That goal against Mexico would prove to be Donovan’s last major USMNT moment.

After his much-critiqued sabbatical in early 2013, he came back and torched the 2013 “B”-team Gold Cup in a supposed act of penance to get back in to Jurgen Klinsmann’s good graces ahead of one final World Cup run in Brazil. But in a somewhat stunning omission from the U.S. squad, Klinsmann denied Donovan the chance of adding to his legacy at the 2014 World Cup.

It’s impossible to say whether Donovan would have made an impact or not, but his track record and recent performances in MLS suggest that his chances would have been very good. Regardless, the World Cup snub cannot take away from the unparalleled résumé Donovan accrued in his USMNT career: 57 goals, 58 assists, five World Cup goals, and three goals in tournament finals.

At the conclusion of Friday’s game, the U.S. will move on. The player pool is growing deeper and the prospects of a historic World Cup run seem to be improving. Today, Donovan isn’t necessarily as needed as he was in drier times for U.S. talent (and public interest), but no matter how much U.S. soccer grows on and off the field, it will be a damn long time before we see another American of Donovan’s caliber on the international stage.