Small-world moments occur all the time for Donahoo. He sees somebody wearing an Outlaws shirt in Lincoln. Or spots Outlaws in the stands on TV. Two weeks ago, he received an email from a guy in San Francisco who stopped in a Mission District store to look for star-spangled shorts. He and his wife were heading to the U.S.-Panama game in Seattle.

The clerk asked, “Are you guys Outlaws?”

Donahoo isn't satisfied yet. The mainstream sports media “still sort of snickers when they talk about soccer,” he said. “When the MLS is starting to be up there with NFL and baseball and NHL coverage, then we'll know we made it.”

But American Outlaws has 31,000 Twitter followers. And Donahoo is busy enough to open up a little office in his house.

He works four days a week as a civil engineer for the state. Wednesdays he prepares for another World Cup summer. He counts 7,000 to 8,000 national members and 83 local chapters.

Omaha was No. 58.

* * *

“We love you, we love you, we love you and where you go we'll follow, we'll follow, we'll follow, 'cause we the support the U.S., the U.S., the U.S., and that's the way we like it, we like it, we like it ...”