Snapping a losing streak is always going to help the mentality of a team and for the U.S. men’s national team, Sunday’s victory couldn’t have come at a better time.
A 5-0 CONCACAF Gold Cup group stage win over Trinidad & Tobago not only ended the USMNT’s four match losing streak in all competitions, but also quieted the pressure surrounding Mauricio Pochettino and his squad. It also moved the Americans to first place in Group D and boosted the confidence of several inexperienced international players.
“It’s really important now to start the competition with a good feeling. I think important for the players, for the guys,” Pochettino said Sunday postmatch at PayPal Park in San Jose. “Nothing is done, but yes, to feel the victory and being more positive in the next few days.
“Today’s game was also a difficult one, especially because of the negative things that happened in recent weeks,” he added. “Some results that haven’t gone well always generate a bit of noise, right? It’s important for the players to have that confidence.”
The USMNT were led by Malik Tillman’s brace, as well as additional tallies from Patrick Agyemang, Brenden Aaronson, and Haji Wright. Diego Luna and Max Arfsten both registered two assists while goalkeeper Matt Freese posted his first clean sheet on the international level.
Trinidad & Tobago were put under countless pressure by the Americans, being held to just two shots on target and being out-possessed 70%-to-30%. The Soca Warriors looked out of sync for most of the match, which was a testament to the USMNT’s overall hard work as a unit.
While Pochettino would’ve liked to have many of his first string players available for the Gold Cup, the Argentine head coach believes the competition could do wonders for the squad’s depth heading into 2026.
“We want to win, but at the same time it’s to help the players to perform and to knock [on] the door and say, we can perform for the national team and we can be involved in the next World Cup,” said Pochettino.
“That is what I expect,” he added. “Win, and the player really believes that they are having the opportunity…[to] fight for a place in the World Cup.”
The Gold Cup is the USMNT’s final competitive tournament before the bright lights of the World Cup come to North America. While the program will still have at least five additional preparatory windows before the historic competition begins, the Gold Cup brings an extra bit of energy for the squad to face together.
Many of the current players may not be in the 2026 squad, but Pochettino believes him and his coaching staff should have a clearer picture by tournament’s end.
“We’ll] start working with a smaller group, [and] always keeping the door open for players who might appear,” Pochettino said. “But above all, after the Gold Cup, we’ll have a much clearer idea.”
The USMNT will next face off with Saudi Arabia on Thursday in Austin, Texas.
I will never forgive Bob Bradley for not playing Stu Holden in the 2010 World Cup and not realizing he was a central midfielder not a winger. He was healthy enough to play then. A month later he was instantly Bolton’s best player and up until his second injury in March he was arguably the best midfielder in the Premiere League. That’s not hyperbole.
BeardedS,
“He was healthy enough to play then. ”
Was he? Stu played one minute, I believe it was in the England game. Bob was not shy about playing injured guys.
He had Gooch out there when Gooch should have been at home. I believe that Bob ruined Gooch’s knee for the rest of his career.
But then Gooch was a mainstay and Stu was a newbie. My conspiracy theory says that Stu ( and Jermaine) were threats to Michael’s dominance.
I’ve long thought that if Stu and Jermaine had been able to go in the 2010 World Cup that MB90 might be more like MB60 or less. Make of that what you will.
The Stu you saw in Bolton was a phenomenal player. His loss was a terrible setback to the USMNT.
as a dynamo fan you’re wrong. you’re wrong. you’re wrong. he was a wing. he was an unholy terror down the chalk. he just got derailed on that because kinnear loved veterans and we had davis and mullan wide. he should have started ahead of mullan, who was fairly average. so he became a swiss army knife here off the bench behind them and dero. after dero was traded we tried both cameron and holden inside. their stats were fairly tepid. cameron liked to run and pass straight upfield. holden was more a “get it, give it” type who just keeps the ball moving sideways. thing is, that’s not actually setup play.
also, like beasley he was a scrawny, delicate thing. moved inside, he had ok production but proved delicate. he got broken. career over.
you’d repeat that choice, benefit of hindsight?
Adams, Downs, and Cardoso all back in training today.
All 3 Americans beginning on the bench for Dortmund today vs Fluminense.
Reyna would have been better off going with the US to the Gold Cup. Dude ain’t going to see time in the CWC. Jobe Jobe Bellingham already getting in over him.
It’s not his choice BvB sign the checks and they wanted him.
Better off “going” to the Gold Cup?
Who said Reyna would have made the final 26-man Gold Cup roster lol?
He might be better off right where he is…… unused on the bench for Dortmund…
Whatever happened to the Bizzy that any player on a European club was obviously better because they had a European contract. Apparently he went away with all the emojis. I miss 2017 Bizzy.
lalas had suggested this was a likely outcome. BD rosters him so he can’t play for us. flex. then sits him most/all of the trip so he can be sold undented. history is most of the time he plays for us he comes back dented and that would mess up the transfer goods.
i could see them giving campbell a runout as a loan showcase and to see if he can crack their rotation. i don’t imagine the other teenager albert gets much more than a cameo.
and then reyna there is no upside to playing a wantaway player very long at all. he has first team tape so there is no incentive to showcase him at injury risk. so if he sees the field it won’t be much. then back in bubble wrap.
re would they have made the roster, neither him nor campbell was even provo’d to keep that option alive. however if they had been BD omits and put on the longlist, i think they either make the initial roster or would have been the first replacement choices as A team begged out.
IV: Lexi might be right, he throws enough self-righteous spaghetti at the wall sometimes he’s right. However, there’s nothing Poch can do about it either way. If Dortmund wanted any of them, that’s that. I think BvB saw Reyna as their marketing gimmick for this US based tournament and he was a lock all along. He’s been featured in a bunch of their marketing materials. Campbell is hard to judge because he got booted to the 2nd team as soon as Kovac arrived and then got hurt. Was that Kovac’s rating of him or just because everyone got healthy? They are supposedly very high on Albert, but he’s just here to practice and be in the Twitter photos. If they get up big early in either of their last group games Albert might get a few stoppage time minutes but not meaningful time. I could see Reyna or Campbell get a start in one of those two remaining games just to keep guys fresh, but I’m not expecting it. Had they gotten 3 pts against Fluminense, I think all 3 players expected time would have gone up. However, now they can’t clinch advancement after the 2nd match.
Hmmmmm Johnny……..That bizzy is residing in the same location where the Johnny that didn’t do his research properly is staying (those days you didn’t even know what position Freddy Adu played Lol). Now I don’t need 8 page essays to make you see the light….hahaha
Dortmund lucky to get a point. Fluminense have played four competitive matches since BvB played a month ago and it showed. Dortmund have on paper easier games in their next two so they’ve got time to get it right.
I don’t know if there wasn’t a choice. They are both FIFA tournaments and clubs do have to release for international tournaments. I wonder if he could have told them I would rather play for my country this summer.
FIFA made a rule in 2025 that clubs in the CWC don’t have to release their players.
meh. you schedule appropriately and pick this roster better and the friendlies would have been more competitive and confidence building. a turkey swiss scheduling sandwich was ambitious for a B roster (as though he expected A talent) and the last several guys he picked for this roster were not up to that test.
i think a team has to learn how to win games and you don’t help it by scheduling so obnoxiously a result is unlikely.
i am curious if they gave us the list of guys who got called last minute to replace pulisic, weah, musah, dest, etc. and we compared it to the people who imploded against the swiss, whether it’s similar names.
you can see where a lot of the performers are quasi-baby-regulars like luna or tillman.
i think poch all but admitted making lineup and roster mistakes on the friendlies. he needs to do a better job scouting his pool.
I wasn’t happy with the US in its friendlies, but what do you say about Mexico that had trouble beating the Domincan Republic or Costa Rica needing a last minute penalty to beat Suriname. Tonight Jamaica lost to Guatemala 1-0. Crazy times.
the deal is some of concacaf has been playing friendlies since late may and had world cup qualifying while we were playing turkey and the swiss. so they may be unusually sharp or they may be overcooked and ready to get home but owe the region 3 more games.
that and some teams may, like us, be running out some B teamers.
the second gold cup in the cycle has always been weird because it’s usually deep in world cup qualifying, some teams are eliminated and trying new things. some teams have qualifying left and need to rest players or try to improve to make the world cup. so historically the first tournament each cycle was more serious than the second. and with nations league the very best teams already have played a big event this year and may be fiddling around.
-Mexico played the same two friendlies that we did. Rotating some just as we did. Their opponents DR, played no friendlies and had their 2 qualifiers playing mostly the same lineups and subs.
– Jamaica played 2 friendlies about half their starters skipped those and none played both. Many also came off the bench vs Virgin Islands in qualifying. Only 2 starters were new from beating Guatemala 3-0 last week. Guatemala rotated more between last week but basically the guys that started this week came off the bench last week. Jamaica hosted last week, this week in CA I’d guess fan support was at least equal if not pro-Guatemala.
-Trinidad: missing Garcia was huge as he is their main offense. Everyone else were regulars starters. Only Bateau, who was very bad, was playing in his 4th game.
– The US is the only team with a B team roster this time. Even CR was able to convince Kaylar Navas. Lozano for Mexico, Davies for Canada, and Junior Firpo for DR are out with injuries but it’s as full team as you get for the GC. Only DR is eliminated from WC qualifying at this point and Guadeloupe who are not eligible. Mostly because of the expanded WC and US, Mex, and Canada auto qualifying.
JR: you’re not listening. mexico and US just gathered a team a couple weeks ago, messy friendlies where they tried new people. then ran out a new lineup for gold cup for their first competitive fixture.
compared to, about every team y’all are naming, DR, jamaica, etc., were just playing WCQ. they have been in camp since may. their friendlies were late may. they were playing competitive games while we were running out a C for the swiss to shellack in a friendly.
on paper, they should initially be sharper than us, before burning out or having injury issues. tnt was just ahead of schedule on the burn out. they advanced to the next round of WCQ and looked like their main job done they’d have as soon been someplace else.
which is historically why a lot of teams just go ahead and call the Bs.
i am not bothering to parse exactly how much mexico and such fiddled with their rosters. teams generally do not field their A+ unit for the second gold cup to save their legs for next year and see if they can tweak the team. you call some regulars and it hides the rest. our PR problem is so many regulars ditched, and the fanboys want them every game every window (despite results), where everyone right now seems befuddled like gold cups were ever full dress events.
IV: -one DR hasn’t been in camp any longer than US or Mexico. Either have most of the guys on Jamaica, Trinidad, or others. They had out of window friendlies but most of those rosters were not first teamers who were still with clubs in England and the US.
– teams have largely not sent B squads this time, even if they did in the past. Mexico is missing a couple guys from Monterrey and Pachuca that play but aren’t top players for El Tri. Canada is missing Bombito and Davies. I guess Saudi are missing a couple guys at CWC, but Mexico and CR just didn’t play very well. We’ll see how they do in match 2. No one has sent a nearly full B/C team as the US has.
-It’s a double edged sword Mexico brought it’s A team in 2021 trying to gain momentum after being upset in NL and then got beat by the B team and were never the same under Tata. They were 21-3-2 under Tata before that first NL. They were 13-9-8 under Tata after 2021 GC. If Mexico wins this GC they’ll have momentum going into next summer if they lose especially if they continue to struggle there aren’t any big games left to recover that momentum. Same could be said of Jamaica if they don’t get out of their group that’s going be a weight on their final round of qualifying in the fall. Plus their Fed is so dysfunctional they’d probably fire McClaren.
fwiw you’re saying DR did some player swapping during their recent fixture list but then saying it would have been goofy to hold a US may camp of euro based to do some talent eval before the in season pros get released for the window.
we do a january camp every year outside the window, have done october and december ones.
trinidad looked like they had been playing since late may and were ready to go home. like until the end when they just started chopping people my response was the mirror image of our recent “are you even going to fight” criticisms.
one then has to discount our performances and result accordingly. like any january camp game you shuffle players into performance piles but due to the lackluster opponent you have to asterix them as not really stress tested by that particular contest.
IV: DR did no switching other than Firpo who asked out for recovery reasons (similar to Pulisic). They didn’t have any friendlies before qualifying because their European and American players weren’t available.
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Trinidad is bad. You gloss over we were in full control of that game before Dest’s red card. Only one of their players had been in that extended camp, they were using only domestic players in their first friendly. I’d also imagine they knew without Garcia, they had no chance. Kevin Molino might have been able to lead them to a result 5 or 10 years and two knees ago but not now.
“i think a team has to learn how to win games and you don’t help it by scheduling so obnoxiously a result is unlikely.”
Bullshit
You don’t learn how to fight by bullying the weak little kid for his lunch money.
You learn to fight by taking on people who are your equal or better.
I have zero proof but I think Pochettino deliberately sent your fresh faces lineup vs the Turkey/Swiss sandwich to get them bloodied and understand what they were dealing with. That’s what happens when you don’t work together.
Remember this has the bones of his Cupcake lineup so there is some cohesion there already.
The way you want to do it this team would be ready about a year after the World Cup was over.
dude, this is not complicated. 5-0 tnt isn’t teaching you to win, i was never saying that. but neither is 0-4 swiss. you need to calibrate it in between. you wanna learn how to win come up with a better tactical mousetrap and give them a game like that 1-0 iran or 1-1 brazil. you have to learn to either get that second or not give up that first.
and you can wave your hands at me all you want but we have literally not won an upset since berhalter took his job. poor unhelpful tactics and not enough experience grinding big ones out.
if you look at our schedule the beat-downs far outnumber the fluff. it’s not teaching them how to win. you need to still have a contest with 15′ left to learn that sort of thing. how do i kill clock. where do i professional foul. when to take risks or not.
these tough games you want are useful if you have your roster and tactics mostly sorted. if you’re not organized it just tends to show you’re a mess. we’re tentative and a mess most of the time. we don’t need colombia or the swiss. we need coaching organization that works and teams right at our level.
IV,
Right. Get some sleep, you obviously need it.
V: it’s really not hard to understand. fanboys tend to think the games against the best teams in and of themselves do something. no. otherwise everyone who played brazil or france would become awesome. which doesn’t happen.
the use of these games is a test. some will pass, some will fail. you then change your tactics and personnel accordingly. you learn from the games.
the US’ response is backwards. playing a tough schedule tends to result in tactical and personnel inertia because we are scared to try anything lest we get our tails kicked. which is not helpful when the A team and its tactics are losing already.
and then because the game was harsh we get paralyzed on whether to make any changes going forward. “don’t overreact.”
example — the 2009 confed cup was a fun ride. but it also greased the skids for dolo’s return to the RB spot because spector got lit up. you have to learn what the tournament teaches.
right now we resist lessons with every fiber of our being.
Absolutely no one thought Spector was the best choice for RB in 2009. Cherundolo was hurt it was his job when he was healthy again. Everyone knew that. More IV revisionist history.
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-Also within two comments you said we should schedule games that would be close like Iran or Brazil and then said you learn nothing from scheduling Brazil because they’re too hard.
IV,
?? ?.
“and then because the game was harsh we get paralyzed on whether to make any changes going forward. “don’t overreact.”
example — the 2009 confed cup was a fun ride.”
right now we resist lessons with every fiber of our being.”
You’re learning the wrong lessons.
The USMNT came out of the Confederations Cup battle tested. They beat the unbeaten Spain and had Brazil, BRAZIL, down 2-0 in the final I’ll never forgive Bob for losing that final but the team came out of it with their confidence sky high.
They subsequently went on to have a very good 2010 World Cup And we know they were a very good team because they suffered a lot of injuries going into the 2010 World Cup that might have sunk a lesser team. They lost CD9 who was the key to keeping opposing defenders honest. They had Gooch reduced to one leg with knee injury. He shouldn’t even have been there. They lost the newly eligible Jermaine Jones to a cracked shin, a newbie who undoubtedly would have injected some adrenalin to an injured side. And Stu Holden, even though he was on the team, was reduced to one minute of playing time because he had not yet fully recovered from a broken leg.
Had Charlie, Gooch, Stu, and Jermaine been healthy for the 2010 WC, are you kidding me? Who knows how far they could have taken it?
The take away lesson? The USMNT needed more depth.
The 2009 Confederations Cup was a legit tournament, not quite at the level of the Euros or Copa America but certainly a quantum level above the Gold Cup. The USSF took great pains to qualify for it including sending our B team to Copa America and saving the A team for the Gold Cup because winning the Gold Cup was the ticket for the Confed Cup.
Benny scored the golazo of his life ( he lived off of it for years) and we beat Mexico in the GC final when Mexico were still Mexico.
In the CC final Bob had Brazil down 2-0 at half time and then Brazil woke up. But he came that close to winning it and had he done so it would have been a big fucking deal. It was certainly a bigger deal than winning the chickenshit Gold Cup.
The main attraction of the tournament was that it had a lot of tough teams and was held in the country where the World Cup was to be played a year later. In effect you had a chance to have a dress rehearsal and maybe even play in some of the same venues against possible future opponents .
“but it also greased the skids for dolo’s return to the RB spot because spector got lit up. you have to learn what the tournament teaches.”
?? So what? Is there something wrong with that? Dolo was a better right back than Jon and he was always going to eventually take over from Jon. Jon,a very underrated player, went on to have a very productive career in the EPL and the Championship as a swiss army knife striker/midfielder/defender.
V: your “timing” analysis ignores i was saying “try new people” (and tactics) a year ago. my theory was spend a few months — starting last fall — looking around and playing new ways. then by about this summer decide who from that period impressed. then spend the last year gelling.
here’s the deal. we often wouldn’t decide between, say, keller and friedel, until the very end. what is happening now is we want to pick the winner the first game of the new cycle.
and then we spend the remainder of the cycle wringing hands over did we pick the right one. is turner as good as we can do at keeper, for example.
i would rather spend the first massive chunk of the cycle fighting that out on the field, then arriving at a battle tested answer as the cycle progresses
-than-
get ahead of myself, pick my king, then fuss in the last year of the cycle whether the king is correct, and if not, which 2-cap-wonder will be annointed instead.
because we will repeat our mistake and judge too fast again on the replacement.
i mean, it was going to be steffen, then it wasn’t. then it was turner, but maybe not. perhaps freese is being set up for the same prop up then tear down process where he’s picked off barely any caps.
so maybe have an actual competition to decide.
The only thing really wrong with Johnny is his pornstache.
Vacqui, what the heck lol 😆
Funny, on Twitter today Athletico Madrid fans are furious they didn’t get the Johnny deal done in time for CWC and USMNT fans are happy he was sick and didn’t play.
The only thing really wrong with Johnny is his pornstache.