US soccer legend Landon Donovan has good news for American fans who may just be daring to dream: He believes the USA can indeed win the World Cup.

With one important caveat: A lot must fall into place first – starting with a win on Wednesday over Round of 32 opponents Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Donovan was a key part of the American team that made a highly impressive run to the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup in Asia.

“Can they? Yes,” Donovan said when asked by CNN Sports ahead of the tournament if the USA’s men’s team can win the World Cup.

“We have a good enough team to make a deep run in the tournament, for sure. The difficult part is if you get out of your group, now you’re playing a pretty good team. If you win that game, in the round of 32, you’re playing a good team. You win that game and you’re in the quarters. You’re playing one of the big eight teams in the world.

“So, can they beat all of those teams? Yes, they absolutely can. Can they do it one after another after another after another, emotionally get up for it? I think they can.

“We haven’t seen that, but is it possible? Absolutely, it’s possible,” he added.

The Americans are riding a wave after winning their first two World Cup matches for the first time since 1930. The US team had already secured top spot in Group D before last week’s last-gasp defeat to Turkey. It’s already the most successful US run in a World Cup since Donovan’s first in 2002.

As encouraging as that 2002 run was, the Stars and Stripes haven’t been able to get past the round of 16 since.

The current generation of US players is led by AC Milan superstar Christian Pulisic, who’s now recovered from a recent calf injury. Donovan – who is America’s joint all-time leading scorer – says Pulisic’s importance to his country is crucial.

 

“He’s the one guy who can make a play basically out of nowhere. Players like that in world soccer are not a dime a dozen, right? They’re hard to find, so he can do that. But also, if he’s playing well, people have to pay attention to him, which makes other people free to play well or to have opportunities to score and create chances,” he said.

Donovan says if the USA is to go deep in this year’s tournament, the home crowd will have a massively important role to play.

“We saw in 2002 with South Korea, we played Korea, the home country. They ended up getting to the semifinals. They weren’t expected to get to the semis, so if our crowd is behind us, I think everything’s possible,” he said.

During his own storied career, Donovan would go on to play in three World Cups, becoming his country’s all-time leading scorer in the tournament after netting a total of five times.

But the now 44-year-old also faced his challenges just four years after that 2002 tournament. The US failed to even make it out of group play in 2006 in Germany. Donovan revealed the mental health struggles and depression he faced following that tournament in his new book, “Landon: A Memoir” released earlier this year.

“I had a really poor 2006 World Cup and got criticized really harshly for the first time, it tore me up. I mean it destroyed me and I had a two-week period where I couldn’t get off the couch, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. I was miserable and I had to make a decision at that time. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. So, if I’m going to keep playing soccer, and there were some moments my agent can attest to this, there were some moments where I said I’m not sure if I want to do this anymore,” Donovan told CNN Sports.

  

“But if I’m going to, I’m going to play in a way that is meaningful and like me and I’m going to make sure that I am healthy off the field so that I can handle these downfalls on the field,” he added.

To their immense credit, Donovan and his teammates came back strong at the 2010 tournament in South Africa with Donovan scoring one of the most iconic goals in American soccer history – a stoppage-time winner against Algeria that saw the Americans reach the last 16.

“It was so dramatic. We had two minutes left after that to see out the game to advance to the next round, so essentially that goal put us through to the next round. We had to win. People were watching it, going through this emotional rollercoaster, and then finally, it was like a Hollywood movie, finally the goal happens in the end and there’s celebration and it was awesome,” he said.

Donovan has high hopes for this current US team. Bosnia will provide a stern test on Wednesday, but in addition to that raucous, passionate fan base, there’s something else he feels the current group of players should also take inspiration from.

“Putting on the jersey and looking down and seeing a crest, but then when you walk out onto the field in a World Cup. In 2006, we were in Kaiserslautern against Italy, and there’s an Air Force base in Germany and there were thousands of military people there singing the national anthem. I have goosebumps when I still talk about it. It was incredible,” he said.