Mauricio Pochettino was supposed to be U.S. Soccer’s savior. Instead, he may be presiding over the national team’s demise.
With Pochettino watching from the sidelines, the national team stumbled through its second lifeless loss in four days Sunday, falling to Canada 2-1 in the third place game of the CONCACAF Nations League before a tiny, mostly quiet crowd at SoFi Stadium.
Canada’s goals, one in each half, came from Tani Oluwaseyi and Jonathan David. The U.S. score came from Patrick Agyemang.
The U.S. will open its World Cup in the same stadium in less than 15 months, but on Sunday it played to a mostly vacant house. And the team’s effort was as empty as the stadium.
After Thursday’s timid performance in a semifinal loss to Panama, the U.S. needed a big bounce back, so Pochettino made six lineup changes, giving defender Max Afsten, midfielder Diego Luna and Agyemang, a forward, their first competitive starts at the senior level. He also used Cameron Carter-Vickers and Mark McKenzie at center back and pushed Joe Scally across the field to right back.
Canada, meanwhile, had to scrap whatever game plan it had in the 12th minute when Bayern Munich fullback Alphonso Davies, its best player, limped off with an injury. Not that it mattered much with Oluwaseyi giving Canada a 1-0 lead in the 27th minute, collecting the deflection of a shot from David at the top of the six-yard box and pushing it past U.S. keeper Matt Turner.
The sequence started with Ali Ahmed bending a left-footed cross into the center of the box for David, whose shot struck McKenize and bounced forward to Oluwaseyi.
The U.S. matched that eight minutes later, and with most of the team’s European-based stars largely missing in action, it fell to two of Pochettino’s new starters from MLS to make it happen. After dribbling through traffic on the left wide, McKenzie sent a low pass into the box for Luna, who plays for Real Salt Lake. After drawing defender Derek Cornelius to him, Luna then dumped the ball off for Charlotte FC’s Agyemang, whose right-footed finish caromed off the right leg of keeper Dayne St. Clair and into the goal.
Oluwaseyi missed a golden opportunity to give the lead back to Canada in the 52nd minute when he collected another deflection off McKenzie in the penalty area, but his left-footed shot at an open net was high. Less than two minutes later, a Canadian counterattack was spoiled by a hard tackle in the box.
Mexican referee Katie García signaled for play to continue, leading Canadian coach Jesse Marsch, who felt García had denied his team two penalties, to charge out of the technical area, drawing a red card.
David made all that moot in the 59th minute though, taking a ball from Ahmed near the right edge of the penalty area, spinning to create separation from McKenzie, then drilling a left-footed shot into the back of the net.
After that, Canada spent the final half hour weathering a flurry of desperate U.S. attacks that saw just one shot get through to St. Clair.
Pochettino, who coached three of Europe’s top club teams to success, has lost two in a row and three of his last seven games with the U.S. He had never coached at the international level before taking charge of the American team in October, replacing Gregg Berhalter, the winningest men’s coach in U.S. Soccer history. Berhalter was axed after the U.S. was eliminated in group play of last summer’s Copa América.
