Its become almost automatic for the US to qualify for the World Cup nowadays. But there were forty years in the wilderness before the US qualified for the 1990 World Cup when Paul Caliguiri in the grandiloquent “The Shot Heard Around The World” scored against T&T to put the US through. He is therefore the grand poobah of clutch performers.
US Soccer has a post on clutch performers who have guided the US into the World Cup. Aldo ‘Buff’ Donelli (1934), Pete Matevich (1950), Claudio Reyna (1998), Joe Max Moore (2002), Steve Ralston (2006), and Landon Donovan (2010) are the other names. Donovan gets a mention because of his match winning free kick against Honduras at San Pedro Sula, as clutch as it gets.