'I showed what I can do' - Malik Tillman's bloody sock, brainwave tech and countless hours of training powered his dream USMNT free kick

After the game, Tillman let the world in on a little secret: he wasn't particularly happy with his performance. The reason why was quite ironic.

"I wasn't satisfied at halftime," he admitted, "especially because of my set pieces."

Perhaps Tillman was just saving his big set piece for the right time. In the 82nd minute, after a Bosnian foul just outside the box, Tillman and Antonee Robinson stepped up to the ball. Robinson took half a step, but Tillman took a few more before firing off a shot with his right foot that went up and over the Bosnian wall.

"Their team is huge," Chris Richards said after the game. "I think like the average height on the wall was like 6-foot-6, so for him to get it up and down was really amazing."

Bosnian goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj never saw it coming. Stationed on the right side of the goal, all he could do was helplessly leap in an effort to get a hand to Tillman's shot. There was no chance.

"The second goal came when we just had the ball, and we were controlling the game," Vasilj said. "We started creating situations, and then out of nowhere, we conceded that second goal."

The goal gave the USMNT a 2-0 lead, one they wouldn't relinquish in the game's final moments. It also ignited a crowd that, at that point, had grown tense after 18 minutes of watching a 10-man USMNT group defend for their lives.

The moment that ball hit the back of the net, the pro-USMNT Bay Area crowd exhaled. So, too, did the American players on the field.

"It's such an important moment," Christian Pulisic said. "We would have had to defend and try to hold off until the end of the game, of course. For him to get that, it gives us that cushion, and it gave us so much confidence."

Added Haji Wright: "We're excited for Malik. That decided the game for us and kind of calmed any nerves in the stadium that were there."

It was a once-in-a-lifetime goal in a once-in-a-lifetime moment. It was, however, not a once-in-a-lifetime free kick.

Richards says he's seen that exact free kick a thousand times. After every session, Tillman stays out there. He throws on equipment used by the USMNT staff to measure brainwaves and works on his set pieces. That technology allows analysts to monitor how Tillman's brain functions in those types of moments. By Richards' estimation, they have plenty of data.

"It's a lot of practice, man," he said. "Those guys, they practice a lot. We have these like wave machine thingies. I don't take free kicks, so I don't know, but Malik does it a lot. It was cool to see it pay off."

Added Weston McKennie: "I've seen him work on that in training countless times."

So, when Tillman did step up to take it, he was calm. He and Robinson had a brief discussion about best placement, and they took it from there. The Bayer Leverkusen midfielder certainly wasn't overwhelmed by the moment because it felt like countless ones he'd lived before.

"We've been going through all the ways we could possibly take this free kick," he said. "We talked about going under the wall, we talked about going keeper side, we talked about going over the wall. I know some guys doubted me to go over the wall, but I practiced this in training."

For those who have had that first-row view of all of those training sessions, seeing Tillman make the most of it sparked plenty of joy. It wasn't just because of the goal itself or what it meant, but rather the person who scored it.

Last summer, Tillman entered the Gold Cup with a point to prove. The knock on him was clear: for all his club-level quality, he still lacked a signature USMNT moment. He arrived determined to change that. By the end of the tournament, he had done exactly that - more than once.

That's how Tim Ream sees it, at least. In his eyes, Tillman was one of the USMNT's best players last summer. When you factor in Tillman's three goals and place in the Team of the Tournament, he's probably right.

Tillman also faced one of the hardest moments of adversity. After missing a penalty in the quarterfinal win over Costa Rica, the midfielder stepped right back up for a spot kick in the shootout. He buried it.

"I think that the Gold Cup was really huge for him," Ream said. "I think the adversity of the Costa Rica penalty was really big for him. Now you look at him, and he looks like he's just playing with such ease and calmness. He's all over the place. It's incredible to see. We've had conversations that he's had that in him all this time; it was just a matter of him finding the confidence and him believing in himself. He's doing that now."

He's also showing a different side of himself, too. He's still quiet and still a bit shy but, as Ream says, there is a new confidence to Tillman, on and off the field. The man himself feels that, too.

"I'm a different type of person on the pitch, of course," the midfielder said with a smile. "We don't really see my emotions, but if you score a goal like this, I think you guys also saw my emotions. It's a great feeling, and of course, a very proud moment for me."

It was a proud moment for the rest of the USMNT, too, as it means their road through this World Cup continues.

After the USMNT's win, McKennie couldn't help himself. He saw the state of Tillman's foot and took his shot at a prank on Wednesday's Man of the Match.

"I tried to convince him to put some rubbing alcohol on it," McKennie said, "and he was like, 'No chance'."

A fun moment between midfield partners and two standouts this summer. Entering the knockout round, Tillman had been the slightly-less-heralded standout. That's not the case any longer.

"I think today," he said, "I showed what I can do."

Without Balogun for the next round, the USMNT will need someone to step up. It'll be a team effort, they all said. The team is 26 players, not one, and the players that are able to play in the next game, a clash with Belgium, will be ready for the challenge.

In the end, though, that game, like this one, might be decided by one moment of magic from one special player. Could it be Tillman? Riding the confidence of Wednesday's goal, why not?

"Obviously, he's been playing so well," Ream said. "I'd argue, other than Balo's goals, he's been one of our best players. He's everywhere on the field doing the dirty things, but then making hard things look easy. I think he just wanted to feel like he had a place, and he's a quiet kid, but he's just come on leaps and bounds."

As for the busted boot, that has a place, too. It was off to the FIFA Museum, U.S. Soccer said. It's a boot that will be tied with a moment in history, just like Tillman.