The U.S. men’s national team overcame Mexico’s best antics in Thursday’s Concacaf Nations League semifinal, and although key starters Weston McKennie and Sergino Dest are suspended for Sunday’s final vs. Canada, interim head coach B.J. Callaghan praised his team fully for their willingness to fight for one another.
Christian Pulisic’s brace paired with Ricardo Pepi’s insurance goal propelled the USMNT to a 3-0 victory over El Tri in Las Vegas, extending the Americans’ head-to-head unbeaten run to six matches in all competitions. A feisty second half featured four red cards handed out by lead referee Ivan Barton after altercations between both sets of players led to the ejections of McKennie, Dest, Cesar Montes, and Gerardo Arteaga.
The USMNT frustrated Mexico for majority of the match, taking advantage of sloppy defending and showing its quality in the final third. While Callaghan and his players would have liked to celebrate their rivalry win a little longer, the focus has quickly shifted to Sunday’s showdown with Canada.
“The performance from our side speaks for itself; we couldn’t be happier with the performance,” said Callaghan postmatch. “But at the same time, we also understand that we need to turn the page and already start the recovery and preparation process to play vs. Canada.
“We don’t look at ourselves as the kings of Concacaf,” Callaghan added “We’re constantly trying to improve and grow as a team, to compete against the highest levels of international football. And for us, this is just a continuation of putting good performances together, learning from those performances and continuing to try and grow and grow and grow as we continue now to look towards the 2026 World Cup.”
McKennie’s red card came in the 71st minute after Montes’ visible hack on USMNT debutant Folarin Balogun led to plenty of pushing and shoving in front of the benches. McKennie’s jersey was ripped in the process while several Mexico players were visibly trying to grab for the Juventus midfielder during the altercation.
Dest’s ejection came in the 86th minute after he was seen retaliating on Arteaga after the Mexican substitute pushed him away from Edson Alvarez. Both players were shown straight red cards, adding to the frustration for both teams heading into Sunday’s tournament finale.
Although Callaghan will now be tasked with replacing McKennie and Dest against Canada, he wasn’t upset with their decisions to stand up for their teammates in a hostile environment.
“In no way am I embarrassed,” Callaghan said. “These are rivalry games, these are derby games, things like this happen across the world. We have a strong culture in our team and what happens is, it comes from a good place. They care about each other so much in that locker room that they’re standing up for each other.
“Sometimes does it have an issue where we take a red card,” Callaghan questioned? “Yeah, but when you know where it comes from, you can accept it. And it’s a learning lesson for us all.”
One of the standout performances in Thursday’s USMNT win was the strong two-way play of creative captain Pulisic. Pulisic won all seven of his individual duels, completed one tackle, two dribbles, and registered four shots on goal.
It was Pulisic’s first multi-goal performance since March 2022, one that moved the 24-year-old five goals behind Brian McBride for fifth place on the USMNT’s all-time scoring list. After enduring a tough club campaign with Chelsea, Pulisic returned to international duty on a major high note and will be relied on to lead the way once again on Sunday with a trophy on the line.
“I can speak all day about Christian,” Callaghan said about Pulisic postmatch. “The level of maturity that he has, the leadership that he displays, it’s not always the most vocal, maybe it’s not always the most public, but when you see him step on the field tonight and put in that level of performance, and set the standard for our group, you can only have a ton of respect for him.
“It’s why he wore the captain armband tonight, because that’s the type of performance he expects out of itself, and that’s the type of performance that we have come to expect from him,” Callaghan added.”
Stop – they did the right thing Weston did the right thing. If you’re playing and they start cracking your boy you go after them that’s it. If Chelsea would have done that and protected pulisic he wouldn’t have been injured so often you got to protect your boys on the field
I think we need to start realizing that Musah is a 6 not an 8. Which means that Adams and Musah are our 6’s going forward. Which means we may get Luca on the field more as an 8 and Cardoso who plays as an 8 for his club team.
Good to see the team stand up for each other. Will the fans stand up for this team on Sunday? Will American fans actually go support their team on Sunday? Will Allegiant Stadium be only half full? Time for the fans to stop making excuses about going to these games. If Mexican fans can pay to go see their Mexico surely American fans can too.
2 things I found interesting about the US players from the match. 1)- Club form, match fitness is extremely overrated. Dest hardly played for any club this year. Hoover, Alabama on had 9 matches for Palace. Turner played less matches than Steffen did his 1st year w/ City. We all know how CP’s season went. Musah’s starts trailed off towards the end of the season, as well as Medford Messi. Weah played both fullback positions. Gio was a perennial backup. All of these players played well. 2)- Only 6 out of the 15 players that played, were brought up in academies outside the US. (CP, Musah, The Gun, Dest, Jedi, LDT). 4 out of 6 are in England. Richards, McKennie, Pepi, Zimmerman (FCD), Weah ( NY Gottsshat) (misspelled*), Turner, & Miles (MLS draft picks) (Revs, & 5 Stripes). Miles is a former college player; Syracuse. BA (Philly Union), Gio (NYFC). My point is that the US players technical abilities were developed in US academies, not overseas in the Top Five leagues. They had technical ability way before the ‘23 NL semifinals.
my god someone gets it. we are responsible for most of our own development. FIFA age 18 rule generally requires it.
and club form doesn’t necessarily correlate to international form. you might even be well rested when called upon.
one response re development. my pet theory is the 2010s are what happens when one prematurely turns over development to underprepared pro teams. i feel like we have stabilized because some academies (FCD, philly) are quite good at their job and produce in bulk. i think we have an issue though where many academies aren’t very good. houston dynamo — where i am — i think we maybe once or twice got a player in a US camp who was not capped. maybe one of those we actually truly developed and didn’t cherry pick. we’ve had a handful of HGP ever start. FCD might have a few start each year. we have years we sign no HGP or they are really outsiders. they don’t tend to be progressed even if i like them.
so, i love the 2019 class of U20s. the 23 class, ok. the 2010s were a fair amount of rubbish. pulisic was FC delco and some european teams. i feel like we have stabilized the situation where we have more good NT level players at a time and not just pulisic. am i like, wow, we have the academies humming, all teams, loads of players? no. so i think more work needs to go into development more broadly.
and then unlike my dynamo they need to be trusted. fine, we traded for raines, but we then tossed herrera, caicedo, and artur in his way. to be fair, a similar phenomenon happens in europe to many of our young players. to be tough, i feel like MLS used to a little more welcoming of a place for the younger player. bayer won’t play you landon? come back here and see the field all the time for SJ or LAG. i feel like it’s become just as darwinian here with the 8 internationals and as such the throughput is limited……
“1)- Club form, match fitness is extremely overrated. Dest hardly played for any club this year. ”
It is not overrated. Not really.
It’s more that it should be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Some guys, not all, can plays 10 games all season and then come in and put in a World Class display.
But can they do it 2,3, 4 games in a row?
In the Netherlands game ( Game 4) a lot of our guys who hadn’t played a lot for their clubs or who had only recently come back from injury were heavy legged., notably Dest and Tyler who both made serious errors.
Nations League was just two games and not as stressful as the World Cup. It would have been interesting to see how they would have done if the NL roster had gone on to play in the Gold Cup.
“the US players technical abilities were developed in US academies, not overseas in the Top Five leagues. ”
True.
But skills do not stay in place.
They have to be maintained, even improved.
If a player leaves a given academy he has developed a skill set but it is not likely to be fully formed yet.
And if he has a choice of going to the USL. MLS or Ajax, where do you think he is more likely to maintain or even improve those skills possibly to their full potential?
And, as ever, it is always a case by case basis.
Tyler Adams’ injury makes a big difference. Given his temperament, he might have gotten a red in that game, but if he was available, then Mckennie’s ejection wouldn’t be much of a problem. Since the federation seems to favor this competition over the GC, and given Adams’ lack of availability, hindsight shows that Kellyn Acosta should have been on this roster.
Gary, Acosta is injured.
100% should have and need to stand up for your team mate. Good on them for that. Now we just need to be a LOT smarter about it. Push, shove, grab, talk smack….
Just. don’t. put. hands. to. the. face. or. neck.
Do. NOT.
Games like these absolutely ARE going to happen in CONCACAF, maybe more so the better we get.
Literally need to coach sh*t-housery. … pre-plan your reactions to the inevitable crap officiating, gamesmanship and cheap shots.
at minimum, teaching point for the next one. do this. do not do that. kid’s select and school teams teach such things. to me you want to head off that an increasingly physical team — good thing — wanders off into mastro land where they get sent off too often. i wouldn’t even necessarily discuss this before the canada game, just some point. this should not be controversial. most players learn where the lines are. the other going doing x to you doesn’t free you to do x back. a lot of 21st century reffing is hard rules. the ref doesn’t get the choice he used to. no studs up. they don’t even care if you miss or it was awkward and not entirely intentional. no hands to neck or face. no punching. no kicking. they often catch the retaliation better than the instigation. i am surprised high level pro adults don’t know this.
Jedi Robinson was smart. Several minutes after one of the melees, when a Mexican player was running along his sideline, AR bodied up and knocked him into next week. He got the foul, but no card. Revenge is best served cold and you can do it without being thrown out of the game. Other US players need to pay attention. If you hit another player above the waist and below the neck and it’s not a breakaway, you rarely get a card. BTW, I am no encouraging this, but when it’s Mexico playing dirty, it can be excused.
Gio did the same thing. He found Antuna and paid him back.
in terms of impact, i thought mexico was trying to get after dest a little and IMO scally might even be a defensive upgrade. i am more concerned about DM because i think they were planning on mckennie for both games, only have johnny deputized, and thus far this year don’t seem to see booth as a 6 option. put differently a team wanting to play 2 DMs should have called 4 DM and they maybe called 1 specialist (johnny) and a couple hybrids who double as AM, one of whom just carded himself out.
to repeat myself i would have liked to have seen more effort to identify 6s in this tournament. i don’t think the people getting snarky about that — “who do we even have” — quite realize what they are saying might mean — if we just wave the white flag — considering adams’ health history. to me it’s basic common sense, get your MF sorted, identify some depth where an injury and a red can be brushed off.
i also think such efforts help you win more over time while the obsession seems to be slap together something for “tomorrow.” well, at this attrition point anyone we deploy has barely been capped. lost how that’s great planning to win even for “tomorrow.” people can make fun of experimenting all they want but my idea is maybe know before some tournament final what contingency options i have that can be trusted.
The USA did NOT overcome Mexico’s antics. We overcame Mexico on the field but lost the antics battle when 2 of our top players got completely unavoidable Red cards. You can posture all you want about “standing up for each other” but the fact remains that we are down 2 players for Sunday. Even worse the REAL message we sent is that if you start playing dirty against the USA our players will get themselves tossed, which will just invite more of this in the future. There are ways to retaliate that don’t involve getting your players tossed for the final.
Scoreboard is the best retort when shenanigans ensue when clearly the better team and you just bossed ElTri all over the pitch.
When violent conduct occurs the team should surround the injured player. Then let the ref sort out the digressions from the match. Unfortunately the ref let a lot go and should have pulled a few more yellows to control the match. Prior to the Mexico CB red card foul the ref missed a yellow on a tackle from behind?
Dest should not have reacted especially since the match was in hand. No one remembers individual bravado from a sideline dust up, except when you get a red card!
Mexico embarrassed themselves on the field and in the stands! The US played into there on the field bs
I have watched every single USA game since 1998 and this was the most dominating win I have ever seen against Mexico.
I truly believe that this young team will not only dominate Mexico for a decade, but that we will pretty much be better than Mexico forever with how much and how fast the sport is growing. The MLS is finally putting real money and efforts into their academies and the evern faster growing USL will also play a part.
P.S. It feels so good beating such a classless team.
I don’t mind the McKennie red card. At a certain point you make a decision that standing up for your teammates is more important. The ref clearly lost control of the game but Dest was just kind of stupid IMO. He let Alvarez bate him. A good ref would have given Alvarez a yellow card given the circumstances of the game but up 3-0 is not the time to retaliate for a tiny little shove. A better response would have been to laugh at him. Easy for me to say since it didn’t happen to me, though.
Dude assaulted Dest and smashed his face in have you been mushed before? I have its bs and demasuclating and you want him to stand there and take being assaulted?Why do you all do that to double standard crude on POC? 🤦♂️
Not a double standard. I have been punched in the face in a soccer game under similar circumstances and I laughed at the guy as he got red carded and told him his wimpy punch didnt hurt as he left the field. It only escalated because Dest pushed Alvarez back. It was a person coming in to Alvarez defense that did hit him in the face and he got red carded for it. Dest wasnt defending a teammate, McKennie was.
Not sure what you were watching. The Mexican guy put his shoulder into Dest and Dest reacted, and it went off from there. Just watched the highlight, I’m not seeing any mushing or demasculation, at least not before the red card. Maybe a Mexican guy pushed Dest in the back, and then the back of Dest’s head?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-IEGnA0C-w
Go to 7:30.
Here’s a better view of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9FXiwAxmlY
I think he probably means the initial shove to Alvarez before Arteaga got involved.
Johnny99 it’s the push to the back of the head that Striker is talking about. I agree Dest should have walked away from Alvarez in the first place but after Arteaga has shoved him twice including in the back of the head his reaction is understandable. Also think it was whatever Edson Alvarez said that started it. Serge seemed to be walking away then abruptly turns.
i thought we handled in well in terms of soccer — we did not reply with any silly red card tackles of our own — but broke down a little in the “afters,” the scrums post-foul. in a perfect world when someone red card tackles your forward, you stick up for them but you end up a man ahead and not even. to be real, if this is a one-off i give them a break. but there are still canada soccer consequences. and in a world cup game they need to be able to restrain the same impulses within at least yellow limits. so i appreciate the intensity and team building. we need that. it has been missing several years. i was a physical player and knew exactly where the lines were and got 1 red for loud expletive dissent in all my years.
there are lessons in terms of what not to do and where the lines are drawn. no hands to the face, etc. i hope when the fun and intensity is worn off someone pulls them aside and says next time try not to x or y. i even thought they got a little baited.
Upon reflection, I applaud the players for sticking up for Balogun after the hack by Montes. A heated rivalry like US-Mexico is a challenging first game for the newest player, but Balogun now must realize the unity behind the players on this team. That mentality speaks volumes going forward as he acclimated himself with the players.
We’ll miss McKennie and Dest on Sunday, but cannot McKennie for his actions. So Scally will likely get a run on Sunday, and either LDLT or Aaronson, and we’re fine with giving then a start. Several are looking at possible transfers, and Pulisic and possibly Pepi raised their stock. Aaronson may be in the same boat, so use the game so he can get some visibility.
I think that in the long run we will appreciate Weston protecting his new teammate more than we realize. The Mexico player took a swipe at Balogun that could only be described as red card worthy; but, it is CONCACAF and the Mexico player did not injure Balogun or make super hard contact with the plant leg.
So, Weston has a new guy, choosing to be your national teammate, a forward who just made a run and tackle back in his half of the field, and Weston cannot be confident based on his CONCACAF experience that the ref is going to red card the Mexico player. He has to stick up for Balogun and probably earns a good deal of ongoing thanks in the locker room.