The Wendigo — Spirit of the Northwoods

The air turns brittle and cold as the Wendigo emerges from the pines, a spirit of eternal hunger and bone-chilling speed. I have seen this same desperation in the eyes of the Americans during the dying minutes of a stalemate. It is the primal urge to survive and conquer, a supernatural endurance that fueled Donovan’s 2010 sprint or Howard’s wall of defiance. To face the USMNT is to face a force that grows stronger the longer the winter—and the match—deepens.