INGLEWOOD, Calif. – There was a feeling of newness when the U.S. men’s national team took to the field on Thursday in their Concacaf Nations League semifinal against Panama. The three-time CNL champions returned to the competition with a new head coach in Mauricio Pochettino, who whipped out a new tactical look for the group to troubleshoot the issues caused by the absence of key players, especially on the wings. For all the new ideas – and there were many – a familiar sense of doom returned as the clock ticked down at SoFi Stadium, and truly set in just minutes before the final whistle blew.
On Panama’s only shot on target, Cecilio Waterman scored the game’s lone goal in the 94th minute to clinch a spot in Sunday’s CNL final, ensuring the only previous winners of the tournament would miss out on their first piece of silverware since Pochettino took the job last fall.
It was one of those games where it was easy to argue that the better team lost. The USMNT not only dictated tempo, they outshot Panama 12 to 3. Pochettino admitted post-match that there was a lot that went right for the hosts, but they had not cleared the obvious first hurdle – competitive edge.
“I think we controlled the game, yes,” Pochettino said. “We dominated the game, yes. We played in the opposition half, yes. We create some strategies to move the ball quick and good positional half in the opposition half, yes. … If you don’t have aggression, it’s impossible “
The head coach has fixated on the USMNT’s mentality for the majority of his young tenure, a move that could once be interpreted as him playing his cards close to his chest on the tactical ideas he could implement. On Thursday, though, that area of focus seemed more like a biting indictment of the status of the team he has the responsibility of elevating in time for the 2026 World Cup on home soil.
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“I think the first half, I think we played too slow, so comfortable on the pitch,” Pochettino said. “We didn’t show aggression with the ball, and because the consequence not to show aggression with the ball. … First half, I think, was really painful. It was really painful to see.”
It was a sentiment that his players agreed with, attributing the first-half performance to a tactical shift from Panama that caught them by surprise.
“We needed to press a little bit harder, press a little bit higher, go man-for-man more and make sure that we were doing our jobs,” defender Tim Ream told broadcasters post-match. “I think we struggled a little bit in the first half to understand what the press was going to be. They came out and switched it a little bit and, again, that’s on us to understand what we need to do and we work on it during the week and unfortunately, we didn’t adjust quick enough in the first half.”
Pochettino and his players also agreed that they improved in the second half, taking a majority of their shots after the break and showing some of the bite that had been missing in the opening section of the game. It almost did not matter in the end – the nature of Panama winning a game in which their expected goals total was a measly 0.1 means the result feels fluky, but the head coach argued that the game’s lone goal exemplified the USMNT’s key weakness.
“Look [at] the situation – organization, good. Superiority, yes,” Pochettino said. “Four-v-two in the middle of the pitch but we lose the goal. We no control the goal. We were not aggressive in the duels. We lose the duel and then we concede. … If we are not capable to improve this, we cannot blame the tactics, the strategy, the game plan.”
The loss marks the USMNT’s third consecutive defeat to Panama in official competition but is just the latest in a long list of underwhelming performances. It is a troubling habit for a group of players that many have billed as the United States’ golden generation, who went to the 2022 World Cup as one of the youngest squads there and have genuinely struggled to live up to the potential they showcased in Qatar more than two years ago.
Some have excelled individually at the club level, but no more than a handful have truly proven themselves at the elite levels of the club game, and as a collective, they have failed to gel. The players were all able to identify a lack of aggression, as Pochettino described it, as their problem on Thursday. When pressed about what the root cause of that issue was, though, answers were hard to come by.
“it’s difficult to say,” Christian Pulisic said, the first of three times he would utter that exact phrase in the span of six minutes, mixing in deep sighs while in a cloud of shock. “Their game plan was pretty clear. They were going to sit a bit lower and defend and they defended really well. You have to give them credit. I mean, I don’t know where exactly we lack that grit or [nastiness]. It’s hard to say, where do you put that in when you have the ball and you’re just trying to score? We need to be more relentless in front of the goal.”
Pulisic admitted he would need to watch game tape to have a real grasp of what went wrong, a fair response as it pertained to that game specifically. The way he reflected on the game with a prevailing feeling of surprise was in sharp contrast to Pochettino’s clarity when discussing what went wrong, which feels like a role reversal of sorts. The build-up of this particular game centered around quotes from Pochettino claiming the USMNT could be the world’s best in five to 10 years and that he wanted to “destroy Panama” on the pitch, but the head coach did not feel blindsided by his players’ inability to meet the moment, despite his focus on mentality. Pulisic, meanwhile, has been around the USMNT’s ups and downs firsthand, and despite years of experience, he seemed as confused as anyone as to why questions about competitive edge follow this team like a pesky shadow, regardless of the head coach.
Pochettino’s assessment validates U.S. Soccer’s choice to find a fresh set of eyes to lead the team into the 2026 World Cup and it may not be time to ring the death knell on the USMNT’s hopes of a statement-making run at next year’s competition. The head coach himself admitted that “there’s still time” and that painful losses can be valuable learning opportunities.
For anyone with any experience watching this team, though, it is finally time to ask why this keeps happening as often as it does – and if the ceiling many have envisioned for this group is higher than it realistically can be.
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