The U.S. men’s national team’s lack of final-third quality cost them in Saturday’s home friendly loss to Turkey.
Jack McGlynn scored the USMNT’s opening goal in East Hartford, but Turkey battled back to earn a 2-1 road victory. It marked the first three-match losing streak for the Americans since Summer 2024.
McGlynn struck early for the USMNT, calling his own number on the opening attack of the match. Malik Tillman sprayed a pass out to McGlynn on the right wing, before the Houston Dynamo midfielder curled a left-footed shot into the bottom-left corner for a 1-0 lead.
It marked McGlynn’s second goal of his USMNT career.
Turkey would respond though in the first half, receiving a bit of luck on its equalizing goal. Arda Guler pressured Johnny Cardoso’s clearance which led to a deflection past Matt Freese for a 1-1 equalizer.
Kerem Akturkoglu propelled Turkey in front three minutes later, rifling home in the box after Miles Robinson’s attempted clearance fell to the midfielder.
The USMNT improved after halftime but Turkey’s Berke Ozer helped his side hang on for the victory. Patrick Agyemeng was denied by the 25-year-old before Tillman’s header was also repelled.
Mauricio Pochettino made six changes off of his bench, but the Americans failed to find a tying goal before the final whistle.
The USMNT will next face Switzerland on June 10 in their final friendly before the CONCACAF Gold Cup.
we subbed backwards which almost made it into a january game in meaning. january games you grab the performers.
of the starters — richards and mcglynn. the former is not adding to the pile. the latter is showing supersub signs, that is useful.
of the subs — adams and wright. nothing added.
this is why i complain about the callsheets. we lost the game and maybe found 1 new player. the performance of many no-names was predictable as many had an indifferent previous cap or two.
x-factor guys who merit another shot–
luna — i would like to see him tried at 6
freeman — decent defense but very sloppy
agyemang — needs to show to the ball more
luna i thought he disappeared and got outplayed by mcglynn as an attacking force against a world cup level team. but he comes across as having a 6-type motor, a willingness to chase and get stuck in, and then would have great attacking upside in support of a true 10. i’d rather have him scrapping then playing nice passes than see johnny out there.
i don’t understand why i was watching —
sullivan
LDLT (MF was getting whooped, and his crosses aimless)
harriel
white
and that was predictable from past experience
this has become too “pecking order” and not enough “here’s your cap or two, impress me.” we keep circling back to mediocrity or worse, because it seems to have been annointed next guy up in the abstract, independent of how caps go.
games over practice.
IV,
“i don’t understand why i was watching —
sullivan
LDLT (MF was getting whooped, and his crosses aimless)
harriel
white
and that was predictable from past experience”
You got what you wanted; a look at “fresh faces”.
You should own the consequences.
spin
he’s been coach a year and that was #27 in the world, not brazil. as i said other comment, they tied wales twice this year. we tied wales twice. connect the dots.
the scheme doesn’t work. if the concept only works when jedi shows, that’s talent and not tactics.
are people serious the offense — LDLT crossing it far post vaguely in arfsten or tillman’s area — was good? mcglynn is more dangerous than that dribbling to goal by himself. idea is have complex tactics more effective than just freelancing. otherwise why bother.
we couldn’t find the 9 the whole first half.
the non-adams MF defense is so bad it’s hard to tell if the CBs suck or are just not being shielded right.
the weak side is wide open on our defense.
freese longballed about 3 times, 2 became attacks. johnny tried to pass from the back, U10-style richocet goal. hmmm
At first people were saying tactics were too regimented, not enough freedom given to the players, now the tactics are sniffling the players when Poch is letting them figure it out more? Which one is it? The first half was so.e of the best soccer I’ve seen from this group in awhile, patters of play and danger crested was good. They found the ST aplenty, and Aygeman kept losing the ball with his bad touch, so thats not on the distributors of the ball, thats in him. And, how many times were we in good spots to score but we’d either head it right at the keeper or shoot it right at the GK? This game was there to be won, the players were good enough, we just didn’t get it done and thats not on Poch…….this pool, no matter who is being called in is starting to show itself as just not being it
Cardoso, for all his club form so far, seems to be that player that you know a mistake is going to happen that’s gonna be costly. That reputation is really starting to stick with him already so early in his national team career. Unless he has a great gold cup, or a club form that is just on another level in the future, he’s going to be a bench player on the national team if he continues to be selected. I’m hoping Luna has a great gold cup, as he just seems to be that player who plays with a chip on his shoulder every game. He’s not afraid to get nasty and be aggressive.
Cardoso sucks he gave ball away to Canada in our own half too, smh
Surprising how poor Cardoso was during that stretch of the first half. Then he was otherwise anonymous until being subbed at half-time.
He had such a good season in La Liga . I understand that La Liga is not a low level league (sarcasm). I cant believe that he sucks, but yes certainly smh.
I wonder what he does for his club team that he has not been able to bring to the USMNT. Is it just the surrounding players? Is it his moustache? A real mystery.
i thought he looked like the same guy played himself off the roster before. y’all keep thinking someone gets transfer interest they must be playing amazingly. all it means is you convinced one pair of eyes.
as we saw, things are more complicated than that. you’d think we’d have learned “club form may not translate” from sargent, etc. already. there need to be NT consequences for these games.
flush screwups, call new faces. quit pretending like agent transfer buzz means they fixed it.
So you’re saying our players are not allowed to ever make a mistake?
Well, just don’t ever call him again.
Problem solved
V: he’s a DM who started colombia, the most recent canada game, and this debacle, where he shipped 1 or 2 goals. i am going to give you back your lame “this is not a charity or age group team” type lines, and say what dunce thinks someone who routinely plays bad for the NT needs infinite opportunities to confirm it?
and setting aside the “negative case,” what positive reason is there to keep bringing him back? to bring back several of the mediocrities y’all circle wagons around?
i’m fairly convinced you and your buddy are just trolling me because no one could rationally believe more of the same turns out any better attempts 2, 3, 4, etc.
this is the way NT work. you get your 30′ or couple games. you show something or not. if not, we have dozens of other kids. try the next one. if not johnny, ok, castenada, maloney, luna as a DM, etc. why are you so scared? why does it “have” to be LDLT or johnny despite 95% of their bad tape???
this is an honor, us trying to put the best team out there, not a shield against you ever lose your NT minutes again. you want that, don’t pass it to white and red.
part of the dutch idea on build from the back is egg the opponent forward then escape. so you think you’re slick and clever and force the ball you shouldn’t. i think that’s teaching horrible decisionmaking. you feel the noose tightening in front of the net and don’t have a wide open teammate, that ball has to be launched. it’s ugly but it’s better than 0-1.
it’s kind of like the naive pressing and leaving the weak side wide open. maybe if we won the ball constantly. we don’t.
we need to do vanilla and smart. go to goal, create chances, reduce mistakes, mark your man. we aren’t good at cute. we’re losing at cute.
IV,
Is that what they taught you on the select team?
This is the national team. They are professionals.
V: when a dutch team wins a world cup it will be their first. when a dutch eredivisie team wins UCL it’ll be the first in decades. i have no idea why we are imitating cutesy bridesmaid soccer.
watch the teams that ACTUALLY win world cups and UCL and they do not take dumb risks at the wrong end of the field. you do not understand soccer whatsoever.
watch spain these days. it’s no longer tiki taka. they send those fast good wings down the line and put it in the air if need be. we are hung up on some 15 year old dutch/spanish cliche that everyone figured out how to stop years ago. we are not that talented to pass teams to death. and when the fouling calls loosened back up the past 10 years or so, it no longer pays to try and toy with teams. you have to have some aggression.
Even though we lost, I loved that the team of youngsters still had fight in them, and would could physical if they had to. Had their chances, but they didn’t go in. Of course, the obvious dumb mistakes cannot happen. Before Cardoso’s mistake, it was an even game. USA was working the ball really well, and then you could tell that lowered their mentality after that.
Nice to Yildiz and Guler playing for their country
Again giving up goals that could have been avoided. You can’t lose the ball in your own 18yd box trying to be cute with it, and the inability to clear balls out of the box has become a joke with this team. Offensively some really good patterns of play early on and at points in the second half, but it’s not consistent enough, which is obviously due to constant changing of players in lineups. There were too many touches on the ball in good and bad spots leading to turnovers and what really frustrated me was not shooting on goal quick enough also because of extra touches. This result could and should have been avoided but ironically enough I’m not mad about it bc of the ever changing lineups, and some of the good I saw
Arfsten missed two very clear chances to tie the game at the far post, but otherwise, he did very well in spite of not being a very good left back.
The USMNT had some very nice crosses today.
2-2 would have been a fair result.
i could do long-winded but won’t here. the tactics suck. the goal is not how we normally play. the struggle is. that says it all.
IV
“the goal is not how we normally play. the struggle is. that says it all.”
Soccer is about goals.
Score that second goal and “how we normally play” means nothing.
National team soccer is not about what it looks like might happen.
It’s about what does happen.
V: that is a silly argument to make when we lose the game. or are we still going to push this is the Righteous Path after almost a decade of learning it’s not.
on planet reality, mcglynn was a one-man offense. the rest was ineffective per usual. what planet do you live thinking we had a breakthrough with LDLT whacking a ball vaguely towards arfsten who then heads it wide.
their keeper didn’t have to stand on his head to stop us. we got a handful of tepid chances. whoop de do.
i think this will go badly with the swiss, ok enough for haiti, and then it’s gonna be a dogfight the rest of the summer. i think we get out of group on gold cup’s easy advancement. i can’t promise much else. i think that’s pathetic.
i think you are so eagerly seated on the hype train — despite a third loss in a row — you can’t see what canada or mexico or even the saudis will do with what you just saw.
Jad some good opportunities to score more. Unfortunate to see the Cardoso mistake. It was a decent performance. Really wish Mcglynn had some more athleticism.
there is a such thing as a sub. every player doesn’t need to project as a 90 minute starter athlete. you put mcglynn in 0-0 or 0-1 late in a game and tell him to go to goal and crack one. maybe pair that with wings who can actually cross and someone like vazquez who can head.
i have seen U16 teams with a better idea how to use a roster to an endgame. some guys can be part of a stalemate package, or a comeback package, be there for specific reasons. mcglynn can shoot. kind of preki. preki didn’t have to start.
Bullshit.
You may not care for their style and how they play but they came out with a plan , did well initially, got knocked back by the goals and then recovered in the second half to hold Turkey to one shot on goal and create enough good chance to have tied or even won the game.
This is a game they let get away.
That may not be acceptable for a real World Cup game but for a friendly it is acceptable.
you have clearly forgotten what this team was between 1994-2015. this is completely unacceptable. this team used to beat germany, holland, italy sometimes. you’re trying to tell me this was good when we lost and the late game attack looked roughly like a HS or low end college team. that level team they hit those crosses in, “good try.” these are pros.