USMNT turn page to World Cup knockout rounds: "We are ready" | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Was United States head coach Mauricio Pochettino blustering past a late loss before the FIFA World Cup’s knockout stages begin? Or merely standing up for his team and the historic accomplishments they’d already attained nearly a week beforehand?

Thursday night’s last-second 3-2 loss to Türkiye at Los Angeles Stadium was something of a Rorschach test.

Did a reserve-heavy, rotated starting XI hold their own against an adversary stacked with elite talent, or did the Yanks fritter away the momentum generated via wins over Paraguay and Australia by leaking a late winner to deny themselves a hard-earned comeback draw?

You can mark down Poch for the former of those two reactions.

“The objective was to finish first, and we are first,” the USMNT’s Argentine manager said during his postgame press conference. “And now it's the next stage, and it's going to be a final, and we are ready.

“We are much better than before that game, because we have players now with 90 minutes in their legs, and performing, ready to help if we need from the beginning, or after from the bench. I think it’s all positive.”

Group D winners

Poch was resolutely defiant, firing back at reporters to remind them of the work the US had already put in to clinch the top spot in Group D with a game to spare, making this fixture a ‘dead rubber’ with only pride and competitiveness on the line.

“What we need to remember [is] that we won first place in this group. We ended up being number one,” he said, pointing to a notable Group E result earlier in the day. “And we managed all of the pressure and the expectations quite well. We saw Germany vs. Ecuador. We saw that match today – Germany, being one of the main favorites, also lost.

“We wanted the victory, but there were other things that we need to balance out, and I made the very best decisions. You can win or lose like Germany lost, with all of the starting XI that they had, you know? In football, so many things can happen with or without big names. However, the expectations, the pressure, remains the same.”

Bosnia next

There’s an old World Cup truism about the group stage being in essence a prelude, that the tournament begins in earnest with the knockout phase, where it’s win or go home against increasingly ferocious opposition.

For the Yanks, that new chapter starts in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday against plucky Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 32 (8 pm ET | FOX, Telemundo, Peacock). The European side features former USMNTer and New England Revolution homegrown product Esmir Bajraktarević amid a long list of battle-tested veterans.

“Obviously we don't want to lose games, but I think the mood is just making sure that we don't get too low, and prepare ourselves for the next game against Bosnia,” said winger Tim Weah, who repeatedly described his own individual performance as “horrible” in the postgame mixed zone.

“The team is in a good spot. We wanted to go into that next round with a bang, but it is what it is. We just have to refocus and get back into training, fix some of the things that didn't work well in this game.”

Highs and lows

Thursday’s setback flashed warnings, however, even with almost entirely new personnel on the pitch as Pochettino rested regulars, gave reserves a taste of this tournament and protected a few starters carrying yellow cards.

“At this level, we can't give chances away the way we did tonight, and it's disappointing,” said goalkeeper Matt Turner, the USMNT’s starter four years ago in Qatar, after his outing vs. Türkiye. “In the end, when it's 2-2 at the end there, that probably would have been the more fair result, given the chances both sides had. But this is football, and we know how cruel the game can be, and we let our guard down, and we got punished for it.

“We were all in positions to make a play,” the New England Revolution netminder said of Kaan Ayhan’s dramatic winner, “and none of us could make the decisive play.”

On the positive side, star attacker Christian Pulisic came off the bench to log about half an hour in the second half, a timely, lively showing after a contusion injury ruled him out of last week’s 2-0 win over Australia in Seattle.

“One of the objectives in that game not only was to win, if not to provide Christian in between 30 and 40 minutes, to get the feeling, to be ready for the next game,” said Pochettino. “That is important, too. [I’m] happy, because I think he finished well and I think was a good impact when he was on the pitch.”

Looking forward

On questions of lost momentum and potentially dented confidence among his group, Poch wasn’t having it.

“The way that we perform until tonight makes me feel very positive about the future,” he said. “Do you think there is going to change the mood of the player, or what they think, because we concede in the last moment, a goal that is possible to concede?

"We should have scored before and won the game. Is it going to change my mood, my momentum? No. Winning this game, or not winning this game, is not going to change. The most important thing is that we compete. We competed really well.”

The Yanks will work a few days longer in their base camp in Irvine, California before pulling up stakes for the Bay Area on Monday evening. From there onwards, it’s a road show for the tournament co-hosts: Win, and roll on to the next destination. Lose, and the dream is over.

“The next round, it’s a clean slate. I think that’s the biggest focus now,” defender and Philadelphia Union product Mark McKenzie told Telemundo postgame. “So tonight happened. I think overall, the group stage was a success.

“We want to go far in this thing; we want to win the whole thing. So it’s not a complacent mindset by any means. We understand that there’s work to be done.”