Donovan celebrates stunning Mexico (Allsport).

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Landon Donovan, a gifted young striker with the aptly named San Jose Earthquakes, was always going to have a seismic impact on the World Cup.

He was a natural phenomenon waiting for the chance to rattle international soccer's Richter Scale.

Yet the 20-year-old is the inevitable product of an inspired youth system that identifies and nurtures emerging talent.

And his performances in the tournament so far, capped by two goals in four games, puts him at the heart of America's unexpected but not unlikely progress to a quarter-final clash with Germany on Friday.

Canadian Frank Yallop, Donovan's coach at the Earthquakes, is not in the least surprised by the impact the youngster has made even in such a rarefied and intimidating atmosphere.

He says Donovan has always demonstrated the potential to perform at the very highest level.

"He just needed this sort of stage to show off his ability and his versatility," said Yallop, the former Ipswich Town stalwart who won 52 caps for Canada.

When Donovan applied the clinical finish to give the US a winning 2-0 lead in yesterday's second-round match against Mexico, Yallop could barely contain his elation.

"It's about one in the morning here and I was watching the game at home with my wife, and we just went crazy when he scored," said Yallop.

"We love Landon to do well - it's kind of a fulfilling feeling."

Yallop became Donovan's mentor when the forward returned to Major League Soccer in 2001 from a difficult spell with Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen.

"He wanted to get out of Germany, where he really was pretty miserable not getting a game, and the MLS did a great job to work something out with Leverkusen."

The MLS contracts players under the American system, and when the opportunity occurred for Donovan - a native Californian - to join San Jose both parties leapt at the opportunity.

"Obviously we knew all about Landon and we were delighted to get him, and if you saw him from the first day he came, when he was a bit uncertain to start with, to now it is a real improvement," said Yallop.

Needless to say, Yallop is excited to be involved in the sport in America at a time when it is producing a steady stream of young talent.

Alongside Donovan in the World Cup squad is DaMarcus Beasley, and in 1999 both were part of an impressive US team that lost to Australia on penalties in the semi-finals of the Under-17 World Cup in New Zealand.

Donovan was simply brilliant and deservedly walked away with the Golden Ball for player of the tournament, with Beasley sending a clear message of America's growing stature by coming second in the voting for the award.

Another graduate from that team was Bobby Convey, who narrowly missed out on Bruce Arena's final 23 for Japan and Korea.

Yallop identified Convey and powerful defender Nelson Akwari - currently focusing on his academic studies - as among an exciting band of young players, and picked out Santino Quaranta as perhaps the next to make a Donovan-like impact .

"He (Quaranta) was starting for DC United at just 16, and he's a fantastic young player."

He broke Convey's record as the youngest player in the MLS when he came on as a substitute for DC last season, then proceeded to hit 10 goals in just 16 matches.

Quaranta is part of a generation of players to benefit from Project-40, which pays young players coming out of high school to continue their playing career but also pays for a university education.

Money is also being pumped into the international youth teams to improve the players' ability to compete with the traditional powers and big tournaments.

"They have spent a lot of money to get these guys experience and now it's really paying off for them," said Yallop, who is currently juggles his training session times to allow the players enough sleep after watching World Cup matches in the middle of the night.

"I had to put the session back to one o'clock today because they were all too knackered to train," he laughed, and acknowledged the positive overall effect of the World Cup success.

"Everyone is happy to see the team doing well over there; there's a good feeling about it all."