This March will certainly go down as one of the more forgettable windows in recent time for the U.S. men’s national team.
Mauricio Pochettino’s squad suffered a 2-1 loss to rivals Canada in the third place match of the 2024-25 CONCACAF Nations League. Patrick Agyemang helped draw the Americans level after Tani Oluwaseyi’s opener but Jonathan David later delivered the winning goal for Jesse Marsch’s squad.
It marks the first pair of back-to-back losses against CONCACAF opponents since losing twice against Mexico in July-September 2019.
Canada was forced into a major change in the 11th minute as star left back Alphonso Davies was substituted off with an apparent injury. Davies, who collected a knock against Mexico last week, looked to have twisted his ankle in a collision with Patrick Agyemang.
The Canadians overcame a tough start to eventually grab a 1-0 lead in the 30th minute.
Minnesota United forward Tani Oluwaseyi pounced on a rebound in the box after the USMNT failed to clear their lines. Jonathan David’s original effort was blocked in the box by Oluwaseyi made no mistake to score his first senior goal.
However, the Canada lead was shortlived as the USMNT hit back just five minutes later.
Tim Weah and Diego Luna connected on the left flank before Luna’s pause and layoff pass to Patrick Agyemang was slotted home. The Charlotte FC forward now has three international goals this calendar year since debuting in the January camp.
Tensions grew in the second half which led to Canada head coach Jesse Marsch being shown a red card. Marsch argued for a penalty call on Max Arfsten after the USMNT defender went down with David in a one-on-one battle.
David responded though five minutes later by scoring his first goal of this season’s Nations League to give Canada a 2-1 lead. A USMNT giveaway on the right flank eventually led to David receiving possession in the box before curling a shot into the far left corner.
Pochettino called on Gio Reyna, Brian White, and Yunus Musah among others from the bench, but the USMNT failed to find a second equalizing goal on the night. Luna came closest to finding one, but Dayne St. Clair tipped away the Real Salt Lake midfielder’s close-range effort.
The USMNT will return to action this June in home friendlies against Turkey and Switzerland. Pochettino will hope to get things turned around quickly, especially with the CONCACAF Gold Cup serving as the final competitive tournament before the FIFA World Cup.
Quozzel,
(My once heretical assertion that Luna is better than Reyna looks a whole lot better today, I’d say.)
You’re jumping the gun.
Luna is more useful right now but he has been playing regularly while Gio barely gets on the field.
So the comparison doesn’t really work until Gio actually gets some real playing time. Gio may never get that PT. Then we can dump him but you may have to wait awhile to get rid of Gio so he can finally pay for the sins of his parents.
Besides they are very different players, who can both make a difference but in different ways. Gio is arguably our best dead ball specialist for example. He’s also the guy I want to be shooting from distance.
For me if Luna is going to displace anyone it is CP who he is most similar to.
More realistically, he’s ruining Paxton’s and maybe Brenden’s chances at making the 2026 World Cup team.
on that first goal for Canada, they have 2 players unmarked in the box at all times, not always the same two, and not including Turner it’s 7v7 in our area, and 2 of our 7, Pulisic and Adams, are in no mans land and neither pressures the ball.
so the USMNT second level defenders in the box are not there again, and the 2nd level ball pressure ones didn’t pressure. McKenzie is everyone’s fall guy, but CCV literally falls down to leave Oluwayesi alone.
for me this whole sequence symbolizes the myriad issues Poch faces to make this work, a truly holistic mission imo. the parts are disjointed and unbalanced for whatever reasons (I have my ideas but obviously I’m not on the inside), and it shows up in situations like this with breakdowns, the opposition gets an overload in our area, and scores. recall the Dutch in the WC
there’s more but that’s enough from me. I guess it’s way too easy to just say McKenzie, when the video to me shows a systemic and execution breakdown
people keep wanting to do presses or sliding around or an aggressive 433 or clever. what this needs is a more defensive formation and vanilla. get bodies back. win the ball. get forward like you mean it. create chances in the box.
we have wandered into some weird cruyff planet where you just jog around positionally on defense in a zone then play keepaway without actually scoring. then ship a goal or two while struggling to mount anything ourselves. and think that’s winning games.
this is soccer 101. outscore the other team. to do that, create chances. then don’t allow the ball around so easy.
my memory was the team in the league that lectured everyone about trying to play some Right Way was usually not competing for the league title. they were the team that threw a parade if they tied you one season.
this team is most effective when NOT in its system mode. when they just play downfield quickly and ball. which says everything.
the big mistake was barking up the same tactical tree for a replacement coach. we are just relearning we are roughly what copa showed with these tactics and these players.
At least, this game was more exciting than watching panama fill the box with defenders.
There is a reason Ream still gets starts, the rest of the CB pool generally allow goals. McKenzie lost the 50-50 ball that found its way to Oluwaseyi. Then he did not pressure David in the box and allowed him to turn and take what was an easy shot. Unless we find better CBs, the US will continue to lose games.
Keeper, the US doesn’t really have one. Need to fix that as well.
Reyna looked like he was wandering around afraid to take any chances and played very conservatively. He has little confidence.
The bright spot beyond Luna was Agyemang. He worked very hard. to upset the Canadian back line (often big guys lack the endurance for that, he does not have that weakness), He can finish. His height is a weapon (but we still need to see it be effective.) Thanks to the announcers for the pronounciation. (Eggyman)
Poch seems to understand that if the only offense your team can generate is crossing into the box that a tall striker ican be effective, hence McBride getting a chance.
The USMNT has two major problems, lack of chance creation and a poor defense. Before this window I assumed the stale offense to be the bigger issue. But I actually have some hope that with the inclusion of Luna, and our top two strikers getting healthy we can improve there. Hopefully Poch understands Puli is better out wide running at defenders, etc. Maybe Reyna gets a move, plays more, and is able to contribute. He was obviously not in match form, and yet his two set piece deliveries were the best two over both games. Jedi and Dest will help tremendously.
The defense is in shambles. I have no doubt now why Ream is still getting called, because there is no one better, even defensively. Then when you add passing/building possession there is no one even close. Richards should be our best CB, but he has been adequate at best. McKenzie was not as good as that. CCV has been flat out awful, time and again. Why was he on his knees while his man tapped in a rebound for Canada’s first? Get up and make a play man. CB is the biggest hole on the team now, and not sure who else is out there that can help in the next year. Hopefully our coaches are going to scour MLS and the globe and bring in some new faces for gold cup. Our defense is as bad as I can ever remember.
jb,
“Hopefully Poch understands Puli is better out wide running at defenders, etc. ”
At Milan CP’s productivity drops when he is on the wings. He is more productive when played centrally. His recent slump was attributed to him being pushed out wide to accommodate trying Felix in the center.
I get it different teams but we should have Jedi and Dest back to give us some width.
Fair point Vac regarding CP has been effective centrally for Milan. I guess I’m not that concerned about CP, he had some bad games for him, but he has always come through in the big games for us, and I expect him to find ways to influence the game for the US, regardless of where he is lined up. I’ll save my worries for our defense…
What we learned:
Without our #1 LB we have no offense.
Let that sink in.
And our #1 RB and top 2 strikers
Jedi is our most important player. The three you mention probably (individually) don’t have much chance in changing the way we played or the out come. He does. And yes I am in disbelief I am saying this.
BeardedSoccer: Dest is virtually unpressable. With his passing and dribbling he can break lines almost at will. Pepi and Balo both are so much more polished than Agyemang with positioning and timing. Yes, Jedi is a significant upgrade to Arfsten but Dest and is significantly better offensively than Scally. Pepi and Balo are leaps and bounds ahead of Agyemang.
Bearded Soccer,
Just to follow up on JR’s points:
How different do these two games look if Jedi, Dest, Flo, Pepi and Malik are in good form and available?
The Cupcakers have performed admirably and remain a godsend and a factor.
But Jedi, for example, is one of the best left backs in the EPL and it is impossible that we did not miss our Energizer Bunny. He and Sergino would have given the USMNT something they could have used, width in attack and much more confident possession when advancing the ball. And Patrick performed very well in his role but when it comes to finishing, Pepi , for one, is a level above Patrick even though both can be effective.
So to say that our injured were not missed, both in the attack and in the defense, well that’s just nonsense.
and that Pulisic can call off a substitution from the coach, lol
Depends, most teams don’t sub before a free kick, especially if the kick taker is going to be subbed. CP waves in the direction of the bench which is in line with subs and 4th official. From the camera angle it’s impossible to tell if he’s gesturing at Poch or the subs. Also is Poch trying to tell the 4th official to wait or to sub. People’s perception is colored because the announcers said he was yelling at Poch. They’re in the press box they don’t know what is going on at field level.
When they were talking about Klopp and then got Pochettino, I said it was a mistake to look at coaches with only big name club experience vs a more proven coach that had experience coaching at the international level and specifically getting decent results with underdog teams. But everyone seem so happy for the bigger names, so here we are. Will we have time to sort this out or will it be another WC embarrassment? Who knows but things are not going in the right direction for sure. Players don’t seem to have a clue tactically out there and we are inexistant offensively in these 2 games. Sad times to be a US fan!
Panama, Canada— it’s like the players are doing it on purpose to annoy Trump haha! We should schedule Greenland next then I reckon.
Mat,
Greenland isn’t in FIFA and can’t join them just yet.
The issue seems to be , and you will love this, their inability to meet one of FIFA’s requirements; the ability to grow and maintain a natural grass field.
Wow.
Well Trump went after Ireland last week and the women scheduled them next. If the women drop those games we will know something is a foot.
there is usually this drumbeat about how the players who played well in practice must be the ones we started and the coach must know who his best are, and yet i watched turner and the defense have a rotten weekend, more sargent struggle, our best 2 attackers for the weekend were off the bench (luna and agyemang), and reyna rotted most of the weekend.
does any of that sound like we have this sorted? in which case infallibility doesn’t apply. i thought we got outcoached twice.
so, can we start running out the guys who perform in the shirt? can we begin separating that from their eyepopping stats line for worcestershire wanderers of the english 5th division?
we just wasted 5 months, eh?
1. Poch has no idea what he got himself into, and doesn’t know how the pieces fit. He’s probably not used to dealing with this level of talent (as opposed to PSG or Tottenham.)
2. From 2000-ish to 2016, we relied on Keller, Friedel and Howard, to bail us out with spectacular saves. We’ve never had that ‘keeper since, and I’m baffled why Turner – terrible with his feet and clearly rusty – keeps on getting starts.
3. I’m rooting so hard for Josh Sargent, but now Agyemang is ahead of him on the depth chart.
4. Put Luna on the list for the final 26. He showed more fire and grit than everyone else combined (except for Tyler Adams, who always shows up.)
5. Ream? Still? He had a great 2022 WC, but he’s not that guy anymore. Are we really going to rely on a guy who would be 38, trying to keep up with faster forwards in the heat and humidity of summer?
6. The lack of atmosphere must have been soul-crushing for the players. I am glad I didn’t pay $80 (plus parking and beer) to watch matches that were painfully boring. That being said, who thought scheduling a game on a work night at 4 PM in a city notorious for traffic was a good idea?
7. Pulisic, Adams, and McKennie are the only American born players who didn’t have famous parents (Reyna and Weah) who are good enough to play on the world stage. I most certainly consider Dest and Robinson to be Americans, but they did not learn how to play soccer here. Why are we feeling so badly at developing talent? Are we already behind by the time the kids are six years old? 12? 15?
* failing (not feeling)
because they handed the development process to MLS, dismantled bradenton, and the MLS academies weren’t really ready yet.
Yet MLS academies produced Davies, Choineire, Shaffelburg, Kone, and Sigur. St. Clair, Bombito, Johnston, Larin, and Buchanan all played in the NCAA. Bombito was the best player on the pitch and he played JUCO for Iowa Western. Canada doesn’t use an IMG Academy.
———————
Stop using Dynamo as your example of an MLS team they are the worst run organization with the exception of maybe Chicago. But Chicago has at least produced a couple players.
Only 6 MLS Academies had players on the team. 4 MLS academies supplied 10 of the 23 players on this team. There are 30 MLS teams, 27 in the US.
Despite the academy system playing for St Louis’ Scott Gallagher might be more effective than most MLS academies, and roughly ⅓ of the team is traditional club including a guy who worked his way up from D3.
Foreign Academy (4)
CCV
Fossey
Musah
Weah
Domestic not MLS Academy (7)
Ream (Scott Gallagher)
Sargent (Scott Gallagher)
Turner
Schulte
Arfsten
Pulisic
Agyemang
MLS Academy (11)
McKenzie (Philly)
Steffen (Philly)
McGlynn (Philly)
Richards (FCD)
Tessmann (FCD)
McKennie (FCD)
Scally (NYC)
Reyna (NYC)
Adams (NYRB)
White (NYRB)
Luna (SJ)
Gutierrez (CHI)
I will say what I darned well feel like about my academy. Richards was briefly in Houston and played for a rival club rather than the dynamo, then played for FCD instead. Multiple players endran our academy to FCD (servania, cappis, richards)…..
you want me to go down the list of USMNT we ran through bradenton?
and a subtle thing people forget is the value of a core chunk of the team having practiced together for extended periods of time and developed the sort of unspoken rapport that helps you win games. we look robotic like i am not sure we ever played together before. U20 these days is basically occasionally parachute in then show up for tournament camps. U17 and U15 now are occasional seasonal camps. we use to have most of U17 in one place.
before you get started, france does this with clairefontaine. we for some reason instead imitate england’s development model who haven’t won since 66 and we have tied twice in the modern era at world cups.
You really are playing fast and loose with your facts on Clairefontaine: one, 25 players ages 13-15 who are from the Paris region are chosen each year. There are 10-15 other regional training centers, that are less famous. Most kids when they age out sign with big clubs most going to PSG where they go through PSG’s academy. How much is Clairefontaine how much is their 16-18 age at PSG, Monaco, Rennes, Le Havre, that’s hard to say but it’s not a national youth academy. How many kids in a country of 69 million are missed because they take 25? Paris has 12 million and they only take 25. It’s not critical because their clubs that have had academies for over a half century pick up the slack. Our academies are 10-15 years old. IMG was fine in the early 2000s but the growth of the game allowed a nation of 340 million people to provide high level training to more than 40, 16 and 17 yr olds. Look back at the failures of the early 2010s youth teams, the Bradenton system had broken it wasn’t producing talent or results.
my MLS team (houston) trades for its interesting young players (eg, raines, mcglynn), i don’t think the academy has produced a regular first team starter here in about a decade (memo). and if they can’t even develop basic roster pros they sure as heck aren’t producing NT options.
it’s a short list of academies actually bringing us potential NT players, dallas, philly, salt lake, couple others.
i think it’s intended more as a dibs system to avoid the draft than to really get prepared players.
Well that didn’t go the way we all wanted. On the bright side I have a feeling this team will bring it in the Gold Cup.
With Dest, Jedi, Tillman, Balo, Wright all going to be healthy. And quite frankly I would love to see Paxten added to this midfield.
Poor performances from some big players in this window.
Luna earned more callups and starts. Best player for us today. No one matched his level.
“ I have a feeling this team will bring it in the Gold Cup.” I have no confidence “this team” will bring it. Switch some guys, gets the injured guys healthy maybe, but “this 23” did not give me confidence.
I can see why many would feel this way. But it will be s proper camp. And quite frankly s time to really see which players can push these guys up another level. For me this camp solidified that Pulisic is better out wide and Mckennie needs to be pushed in training by another 8. Hence why I will continue to say Pax Aaronson should be in the Gold Cup team.
Anyways still some time to figure things out.
Unfortunate both Robinson and Tolkin were injured this camp.
2tone, I really do appreciate your optimism I’m just not sure what we’ll get out of the Euro regulars if they are even available.
Gold cup is really tough on European based players. They essentially get no time off after their long seasons and the would have to play again next summer with no time off before the WC (esentially 2 years straight with no time off before WC). I don’t think you will see many of the big name European players in the Gold Cup, but maybe that is a good thing ..
i don’t think we need to see all of these As again. i think we need to see the ones not getting called much, or who like reyna badly need some minutes.
i feel like benching top players for club minutes is idiotic. we can help our best players with club problems get some playing time. we used to do this.
we now believe in stats lines and so i am watching white struggle to execute basic soccer plays, or sargent’s 6 year dry patch continue.
i mean, do we get that if we get reyna on the field and he shows well that maybe helps get him sold from dortmund and then the playing time he needs?
or conversely that maybe sargent and white shouldn’t be very high up the depth chart at all, injuries or not?
gold cup needs to be a mix of players in bad career situations, the european B guys who fall in the cracks, experiments, and players whose performances we’re not sure about. if they don’t get enough games — this is a chance to get in shape in camp then play 6 games. if they play inconsistently — here’s a long series of games to either show you can play predictably well or not. poch also needs to look at some fresh faces, and IMO particularly the european prospects.
a fundamental US issue is when we call in the Bs it’s the MLS Bs, there are less chances for us to bring in a fossey or campbell or yow where they are stuck behnd the 23 man but they don’t get compared to the guys in MLS and MX.
as long as we keep calling the same people to play roughly the same way, we will get the same results.
i get we’re missing a few players but based on what i just watched this week, you can’t tell a poch team from a GB team without those players.
-Luna played with both grit and creativity today. He had urgency on both sides of the ball. Not sure many others did.
-Certainly could have used Dest, Jedi, Pepi, and Balo today.
– CB continues to be a weakness, today explains why Ream still gets called. I do think Mark had to step with Buchanan who was onside when David received the ball (41 secs on highlight). Trusty has been called by 4 or 5 managers but is almost always DNP Coach’s decision, I think that says something.
– This team as a whole is too risk adverse, how many midfielders ever look to turn and progress, instead just automatically tap it back to CBs.
CB for the longest time was the team’s strength. Ironically it is now the weakest link. I do not see anyone in the queue right now who can replace what we get from Ream today.
If we are looking for a silver lining, we have another striker in Agyemang who can compete for minutes, and both Luna and McGlynn can add depth to MF. It is apparent we need new talent to inject into the mix to increase competition for minutes, and that is a good start.
I applaud your positivity in finding a silver lining. The only one I could find was University of MD basketball won with a buzzer beater.
Tele57, he traveled.
JR, it is only traveling if the ref calls it 😀
JR, Tele,
When was the last time you saw traveling called, anywhere?
Is it still in the rule book?
And even if he did travel, he made a completely insane shot.
Top takeaways
1. Forget our past record against Canada. The US must bring their ‘A’ game for every match against Canada going forward. A much improved defense, a disciplined press, and loads of athleticism.
2. Only a few years ago we beat Panama handily. I recall scores of 6-0. With a coach instilling effective, disciplined defensive tactics, Panama is improved. Based on the last couple of games, Panama now has the upper hand.
3. There is no WCQ this cycle, which perhaps is a blessing in disguise.
4. The WC is a year away. 2 friendlies in June, then the GC. A lot of improvement needed this summer.
Great 3rd point. I was thinking the same. We are lucky we don’t have World Cup Qualifiers for 2026. We might be hard pressed to even qualify.
Expanded WC, Concacaf gets 6 auto bids plus a possible 2 more.
PN,
If this was a regular WC qualifying cycle , the USMNT’s odds would have been just about what they usually are.
Namely; very good.
The regular WC qualifying Octagon format is still one of the most forgiving in world football.
Everyone else in CONCACAF is much better but we still have more quality players than anyone else in CONCACAF.
Whether they would have splurged on Pochettino, I don’t know but they probably would not have risked bringing Gregg back for Round 2 of Reynagate. So whoever they hired, that person could have taken these guys into Copa America for a test drive.
And the motivation would have been completely different. The Hex and now the Octagon was always really a grind.
All of this weeping and gnashing of teeth is an overreaction. Given the abbreviated time frame (people were fooled by Emma’s instant success) the odds were always going to be against Pochettino. He was always going to wind up having to perform the coaching job of his life on the present player pool for us to have a credible showing in 2026.
A lot of you are saying some variation of now Pochettino knows what we all have known all along, he should have just asked us.
Which is the whole point of Pochettino.
Going in he did not know the usual suspects. He’s not prejudiced. It looks like he’s taken every player seriously including the Cupcakers which many of us did not. And now he’s seen them winning and seen them losing. He has more data now to help focus his insight. Hopefully that will give him a better chance to solve what ails them, if that is possible.
If this puzzle can be solved I think Pochettino can do it. The question is will he run out of time before he does? As someone else pointed out, he’s not going to risk our A team in the Gold Cup, even if the clubs let him have the players. The risk of injury and disrupting our players’ last season before the World Cup is too high.
In addition to the usual suspects, we need Jedi and Dest Malik, Pepi and Flo being healthy and playing well that last season before the World Cup. Hopefully, the USSF is pulling out all the stops to schedule as many high-quality opponents as they can in friendlies between now and then.
I thought this project might be interesting and I wasn’t wrong.
Sigh😡😤🤦♂️Poch don’t know player pool, CP is not a CAM he is a winger. Poch instead getting to know player pool, he spends his time preoccupied at charity matches in Saudi Arabia, sounds about right. I don’t like how he always has his face scrunched up like he smelling poo or farts. Probably smelling his bad foul coaching and tactics.
Poch should go. He is not the right coach for these players and these are essentially the players the team will have at the WC, or they should fire Gregg again just to have someone to blame. I’m waiting for the posts blaming this on Gregg. I think they are coming but we will see.
“they should fire Gregg again just to have someone to blame.” Best take of the day.
Couldn’t they ask the Fire to axe Gregg just on principle?
He could serve as the official USMNT sineater.
haha Tele, cheers
Too three takeaways:
1. Disjointed performance.
2. Luna showed up.
3. We are world class at keeping the ball between our back 4.
Not really. They get pressured and lose the ball a lot when passing it around in the back.
That was pretty much the start of the problem and Whoo Baby was it pronounced. It starts with Turner. He’s beyond awful with the ball at his feet, which all opponents clearly know because they press him incessantly and he’s got so little confidence in his even mid-range passes you’ll see him time and again not go the the 6 even when the guy is open, so he’ll dink and dunk to the outside backs even when they themselves are being pressed, and so our LB and RB were constantly having to play their way out of pressure in our own corners…and then when the ball went back to the CB’s – especially CCV – we had zero ability to pass it through the middle either. (McKenzie was…okay.) Tyler Adams didn’t really cover himself with glory either game…he defends well and covers ground and I’ll never question his intensity or desire but he’s no more than meh in possession, he’s more meh at playing on the turn, and his passing is average at best too.
We’ve got dynamic wingers but the ball just wasn’t getting to them and it all started at the back. Add to that that McKennie is dynamic but sloppy and gifts the other team a lot of cheap turnovers and we couldn’t even get it out of our own half a lot of the time.
Unless he craters between now and then, Zach Steffen’s going to be starting for Gold Cup. I can almost promise you that. We had just five shot attempts and only two of them were on goal…and Diego Luna was literally involved in every one of them.
The best news of this whole wretched camp – Luna’s as talented as I thought he was and I’ll re-iterate my belief he’s a generational talent and the long-term answer for us at the 10. He was the best player on the field today by a mile, and the only one who might have an argument he was close was Weah. I’d say Luna pretty comprehensively resolved the question of: does he belong with this group, and also: can he cut it in Europe? On the other hand, Gio Reyna was as anonymous and ineffective as we’ve seen him be for both Nottingham and Dortmund the past two years. If he doesn’t find somewhere to establish himself we may actually not see him back on the roster again. (My once heretical assertion that Luna is better than Reyna looks a whole lot better today, I’d say.)
Also, something I’d mention – this Canada team is really good, like, the best I’ve seen from them, ever, and it’s not close. They were better than Mexico but were unlucky (and got jobbed by the ref) and they were better than us today and got the result they deserved. About 4-5 of their starters would be starting for us, and every last one of their starters would be in our 23.
Quozzel,
(My once heretical assertion that Luna is better than Reyna looks a whole lot better today, I’d say.)
You’re jumping the gun.
Luna is more useful right now but he has been playing regularly while Gio barely gets on the field.
So the comparison doesn’t really work until Gio actually gets some real playing time. Gio may never get that PT. Then we can dump him but you’ll just have to wait to get rid of Gio so he can finally pay for the sins of his parents.
Besides they are very different players, who can both make a difference but in different ways. Gio is arguably our best dead ball specialist for example. He’s also the guy I want to be shooting from distance.
For me if Luna is going to displace anyone it is CP who he is most similar to.
More realistically, he’s ruining Paxton’s chances at making the 2026 World Cup team.