On the eve of what turned out to be his first loss in a competitive match in charge of the United States men’s national team and the end of his honeymoon with his newish employers, Mauricio Pochettino said something accidentally prescient.
“Football is about timing and it’s about form and the situation of the player,” he said to a room of reporters ahead of the US’s 1-0 loss to Panama.
At the time, form appeared to be on the affable Argentinian’s side. Christian Pulisic is playing some of the best soccer of his career at Milan. Weston McKennie has, improbably, become a stalwart once again at Juventus, the very club that tries to dump him every summer. Tyler Adams is finally healthy and ticking over sweetly at the base of the Bournemouth midfield. Josh Sargent is having yet another productive season with Norwich in the Championship. Chris Richards has grown into his immense potential at the heart of the Crystal Palace defense. You could go on like that for a little while longer.
Timing, on the other hand, is no longer Pochettino’s friend.
He wanted to “destroy” Panama in Thursday’s Concacaf Nations League semi-final in Los Angeles, he said, although hastening to add that he meant it “in the sports way”, steering well clear of delving into the politics of an expansionist president.
Panama, of course, had already defeated the United States twice in the sides’ last two non-friendly meetings. In the 2023 Gold Cup, Los Canaleros triumphed on penalties in the semi-final. A 2-1 come-from-behind win in last summer’s stateside Copa América sent the dominoes tumbling towards a humiliating group stage elimination, Gregg Berhalter’s firing and, ultimately, Pochettino’s hire.
On Thursday, the Americans looked jittery, disjointed and lethargic in the first half and, while brighter and more energetic in the second, they were incapable of breaking down the tightly packed Panamanians. A series of chances for the American strikers Sargent and his replacement Patrick Agyemang yielded no goals whereas Panama’s Cecilio Waterman put away his side’s one real chance in the 94th minute, beating a mispositioned Matt Turner to his far post. Tyler Adams’ 98th-minute rocket half-volley from the edge of the box came within inches of saving his team.
On the CBS broadcast, which had been swarmed by the Panamanian team as Waterman celebrated with his idol, Thierry Henry, analysts Clint Dempsey and Mo Edu were unsparing.
“We weren’t good enough,” said Dempsey. “It’s an embarrassment.”
“This feeling feels too familiar,” added Edu. “One team had a plan. And they executed that plan. That team was Panama.”
Pochettino, for his part, was under no illusions about what had gone wrong. Not enough aggression on the ball in the first half, which he called “really painful.”
“We are USA, but you cannot win with your shirt,” he added in his post-game press conference. “You need to come here and be better and suffer and win the duels and work hard. If not, it’s not going to be enough.”
This now makes it three consecutive tournaments on home soil where the US has faceplanted, each time to Panama. With just under 15 months remaining until the 2026 World Cup, played mostly in the US, something beginning to approximate a panic will set in now.
In terms of meaningful competitions to prepare for the big dance, only this summer’s Gold Cup remains. But this event is far from ideal – it will pit the Yanks against the same old Concacaf competition (plus Saudi Arabia), and the US will have to contest it without Juventus players McKennie and Tim Weah and probably Borussia Dortmund’s Gio Reyna, who should all be away contesting the Club World Cup at the same time.
Still, there might be some utility in the loss to Panama. The Americans will get to play a feisty opponent in Canada on Sunday all the same, and with a great deal to prove (and no small amount of political pressure). They can take some consolation in a late defeat absent their injured starting full-backs Antonee Robinson and Sergiño Dest – just the sort of attacking talents who could have broken down the narrow Canaleros from the flanks. Leading strikers Ricardo Pepi and Folarin Balogun, also injured, were also much missed.
Perhaps helpfully, Pochettino has been exposed as a merely mortal coach. The halo is gone. The players in his care are the same as they were under Berhalter, more or less. They have the same shortcomings they’ve always had: A knack for starting crucial games shorn of the requisite energy, and a chronic difficulty picking apart low defensive blocks. There may yet be value in this realization.
History, too, might offer some comfort here. There is a long list of host teams who stumbled into their home World Cup on the back of a concerning run of form. Ahead of the 1986 World Cup, Mexico suffered a series of shaky performances, culminating in a 3-0 loss to England in their final tune-up. But El Tri, managed by Bora Milutinović – who would take over the US in 1994, as it happens – made a run to the quarter-final, matching its best performance ever.
In ’94, the Americans stumbled through their preparations with losses to Romania, Sweden, Chile and, worst of all, Iceland – a total non-factor in international soccer back then. These defeats were wedged around a series of insipid ties with unimpressive opponents. Yet the Yanks made the second round at the World Cup, losing 1-0 to eventual champions Brazil and setting the stage for the modern era of American soccer as we know it today.
France won just two of its six matches before lifting the 1998 World Cup in Paris. Germany lost 4-1 to Italy just three months before staging the 2006 World Cup, where it would make a surprise run to the semi-finals regardless. South Africa couldn’t beat Namibia or North Korea as it prepared for the 2010 World Cup, where it was nevertheless competitive and a tad unlucky not to advance from the group stage.
On the basis of that knowledge, at least, USMNT fans can take a breath and consider the precedent of host teams who have gotten their acts together at the 11th hour.
That said, the Americans have an awful lot of work to do to get there.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is at work on a book about the United States men’s national soccer team, out in 2026. He teaches at Marist University.
