Turkiye on Thursday night scored a goal deep in stoppage time to notch a 3-2 win over the USMNT, “spoiling the Americans’ unbeaten start” in the group stage of the World Cup. With the USMNT “having already locked down a spot in the knockout stages,” coach Mauricio Pochettino “emptied his bench” for the Turkiye match, “making nine changes to his lineup ... and giving 21 players a start in the first round.” But that “roll of the dice didn’t work,” with Turkiye “getting its only win of the tournament on its last touch of the World Cup.” Whether the result “robs Pochettino’s team of the momentum it built” in the prior games “won’t be known until Wednesday,” when the USMNT faces Bosnia and Herzegovina, the third-place team from Group B, in its first elimination game in Santa Clara (L.A. TIMES, 6/25).
After the game, Pochettino “expressed his annoyance with what he perceived as disappointment in the result.” Pochettino said to reporters, “For you not say congratulations that we won the group, that is a little bit sad. ... We won first place in this group. ... We had other priorities. We wanted to win. We did want the victory, but there are other things we needed to balance out, and that’s how I made the decisions.” Pochettino “fielded nearly an entirely new lineup for this low-stakes game,” notably “resting all four key players who picked up yellow cards earlier in the tournament.” But the “game’s meaninglessness didn’t matter to the raucous sellout crowd that packed SoFi Stadium” (AP, 6/26).
The loss to Turkiye “comes with an asterisk,” as this version of the USMNT “wasn’t the one that dominated its first two games and won the group.” This version “was the B team.” Turkiye “also was chippy.” The “only thing they had to play for was pride,” but “that’s a pretty powerful motivator and they were bodying the Americans from the jump.” If the USMNT “starters had produced this result, then it would be time to panic.” Instead “it’s just ... an asterisk” (USA TODAY, 6/25).
