Pochettino defends the USA after defeat to Turkey: “We won the group,” but the defense sends a warning ahead of the knockout stage
Mauricio Pochettino did not try to present the United States national team’s defeat to Turkey as a flawless result, but after the end of the group stage of the 2026 World Cup he made it clear that he was surprised by the negative tone of the questions at the press conference. On June 25 in Inglewood, at Los Angeles Stadium, the USA lost 3:2 through a goal by Kaan Ayhan in the eighth minute of stoppage time, but the American team had already secured first place in Group D before the match began. “Sorry, guys, we won the group,” Pochettino told reporters, emphasizing that the basic objective of the first phase of the competition had been achieved.
According to the Associated Press report, Pochettino reminded after the match that his team had won six points in three rounds, beaten Paraguay and Australia, and entered the knockout stage from first place. The coach especially stressed that in the match against Turkey he had to balance the desire to win with the need to protect players from injuries and possible suspensions. The United States Soccer Federation stated that Pochettino made nine changes to the starting lineup compared with the match against Australia, which is a United States national team record between two matches at World Cups.
Still, the defeat is not completely insignificant for the broader picture of the American performance. Turkey entered the match already eliminated, without a goal in the first two rounds, and then scored three times against the altered American lineup and punished problems in defensive organization in the closing stages. According to the official U.S. Soccer report, the USA had more shots, more shots on target and significantly more corners, but Turkey was more efficient at the crucial moments. That is why Pochettino’s message about first place in the group will be viewed together with the question of how quickly the team can stabilize before the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
A defeat that did not change the standings, but changed the tone of the debate
The USA opened the group stage with a 4:1 win against Paraguay, and then secured qualification and first place before the final round with a 2:0 win against Australia. According to the official table published by U.S. Soccer, it finished Group D with six points, eight goals scored and four conceded. Australia finished second with four points, Paraguay third also with four, while Turkey remained last with three points. This meant that the final match carried no pressure in terms of results for Pochettino’s team, but it was not completely unimportant for the impression ahead of the knockout stage.
Pochettino therefore tried to steer the discussion toward the overall group performance, rather than the final attack of the match. According to The Guardian, the Argentine expert called questions about lost “momentum” strange and emphasized that the risk of playing with the strongest lineup could have outweighed the benefit, especially because of possible cards and fatigue. Such a stance has football logic: in the expanded World Cup format, the knockout stage starts earlier than at previous tournaments, and one match now immediately decides whether the journey continues. At the same time, however, the way Turkey created chances showed that against stronger opponents every mistake in the back line will carry a higher price.
In the American interpretation of the match, the emphasis was on resource management, while the Turkish side saw it as an opportunity for a dignified farewell to the tournament. Associated Press reported that Turkey coach Vincenzo Montella expressed satisfaction after the match with the character of his team and its performance in front of a noisy crowd in California. For Turkey, which had earlier lost to Australia and Paraguay, the victory did not bring qualification, but it ended a negative run and gave at least a symbolic conclusion to its tournament appearance. For the USA, the same match was a reminder that the status of host and group winner does not remove the need for discipline in defense.
The USA’s fast start, Turkey’s comeback and the final blow in stoppage time
The American team opened the match ideally. According to the official U.S. Soccer report, Auston Trusty scored after just 134 seconds, following Sebastian Berhalter’s corner delivery, which is the second-fastest United States goal in World Cup history. That early goal confirmed that Pochettino’s rotated team was not taking the field merely to get through the match. It also opened an evening for Berhalter in which, according to U.S. Soccer notes, he would become the first American player since 1966 with a goal and an assist in a single World Cup match.
Turkey, however, quickly returned to the contest. Arda Güler equalized in the 10th minute, after a move down the right side and a pass from Barış Alper Yılmaz, and Orkun Kökçü finished another good Turkish attack in the 31st minute for 2:1. U.S. Soccer stated that Güler’s goal was Turkey’s first goal of the tournament, which further underlined how much emotional weight the match had for Turkey. The American defense in those moments failed to close the space between the full-backs and central defenders in time, so Turkey extracted maximum effect from a relatively small number of situations.
The USA reacted quickly after the break. Berhalter scored in the 49th minute with a powerful shot from the edge of the penalty area to make it 2:2, after the ball rebounded following Mark McKenzie’s long throw-in. In the 58th minute, Pochettino introduced Christian Pulisic instead of Tim Weah, and later Sergiño Dest, Alex Freeman, Malik Tillman and Alex Zendejas also came on. According to the American federation, Pulisic thereby recorded his first minutes after missing the second half of the opener against Paraguay and the entire match against Australia because of a calf problem. His introduction brought additional energy, but not the final American goal.
Turkey found the decision at the very end. According to U.S. Soccer’s description, Can Uzun received a long ball at the far post, returned it in front of goal, and Ayhan slid in and sent it into the net for 3:2. Associated Press reported that the goal was scored in the eighth minute of stoppage time and brought Turkey its only victory of the tournament. For Pochettino, that precise moment created an unpleasant final image of the match, even though it did not change the standings in the group.
Rotations as a deliberate decision, not just a reaction to the result
Pochettino’s decision to change almost the entire starting lineup was the central theme of the match and the discussion after it. According to U.S. Soccer, the only players who remained in the starting lineup compared with the win against Australia were Weston McKennie and Ricardo Pepi, and McKennie wore the captain’s armband. Matt Turner, Miles Robinson, Mark McKenzie and Brenden Aaronson made their first appearances at this World Cup, while Robinson, McKenzie, Aaronson, Berhalter, Gio Reyna, Joe Scally, Trusty and others were given a chance in a match in which the top of the group was not being decided.
Such an approach was not only about resting players, but also about managing risk. According to Associated Press, Pochettino rested four important players who had earlier received yellow cards in the tournament. In a competition in which suspensions can carry over into the knockout stage, that was an understandable move, especially for a team that had already secured first place. After the match, Pochettino said that he wanted to win, but also that there were other priorities he had to take into account.
That is precisely why his sharp response to reporters should be read as a defense of a broader plan. According to AP, the coach said he was saddened that more emphasis was not being placed on the fact that the USA had won the group, and according to The Guardian he added that the team was ready for the next phase. This did not mean that he was ignoring weaknesses, but that he rejected the interpretation that one defeat in a match without competitive pressure cancels out everything achieved in the first two rounds. At the same time, football logic requires concrete lessons to be drawn from such a match, especially about reactions after losing the ball and protecting the space in front of the goalkeeper.
What the USA gained, and what it must fix
The USA leaves Group D with several clear positive elements. According to U.S. Soccer, the team set its own record for goals at a single World Cup with eight, while six points is the highest American total in the group stage of that competition. Trusty scored his first national-team goal, Berhalter took advantage of his opportunity in midfield, and Pulisic’s return gives Pochettino an additional option ahead of the knockout match. The depth of the squad, which was the reason for the rotations, has now been at least partly tested in competitive conditions.
But the negative elements are also visible. According to U.S. Soccer statistics, the USA had 18 shots to Turkey’s nine and seven shots on target to three, yet still conceded three goals. Such a ratio points to a problem of efficiency at both ends of the pitch: the tournament host did not turn pressure into victory, and at the same time allowed Turkey to change the result from a smaller number of clear situations. The defense looked particularly vulnerable with passes behind the line and crosses to the far post, which against opponents in the knockout stage will be a detail on which a match can turn.
The question of “momentum” is therefore not entirely unfounded, even though Pochettino does not want to accept it as the decisive theme. A team that looked convincing in the first two rounds now enters an elimination match after a defeat, but also with rest for part of its key players. In that sense, the defeat to Turkey can have a dual value: it can be a warning without damage in the standings, but also pressure that will increase if the same defensive mistakes are repeated against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bosnia and Herzegovina waits as the first knockout obstacle
According to U.S. Soccer’s announcement of June 26, the United States, as the winner of Group D, will play against Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 1, 2026, at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium in Santa Clara, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. It is a round-of-32 match, a new round introduced because of the expansion of the World Cup. FIFA stated in its official explanation of the format that the 2026 tournament will for the first time bring together 48 national teams, arranged in 12 groups of four teams, and that the top two from each group and the eight best third-placed teams will advance.
The meeting with Bosnia and Herzegovina will be the first official head-to-head match between these national teams, according to U.S. Soccer data. The American federation notes that the teams previously met three times in friendly matches: the USA won 4:3 in Sarajevo in 2013 after trailing by two goals, and that was followed by a 0:0 draw and an American 1:0 win in Carson in 2018. The history of their mutual meetings, however, will have limited value in a knockout-stage match, in which form, the health of key players and reaction to pressure will be more important than friendly matches from previous cycles.
For Pochettino, the most important task now is to combine two messages that seemed to be in tension after Turkey. The first is that the USA can rightly emphasize first place in the group, because it secured it before the final round and opened a path that on paper is more favorable than the alternative scenarios. The second is that the result against Turkey is not merely a statistical footnote, but a warning about details that in the knockout stage will no longer be able to be separated from the final outcome. That is why preparation for Bosnia and Herzegovina will be a test of Pochettino’s assessment: whether the defeat was a controlled risk on the way toward a fresher team or a sign of weaknesses that require quick correction against the next opponent.
Sources:
- Associated Press – report on the Turkey – USA match, Mauricio Pochettino’s reaction, the scorers and the context of the conclusion of Group D (link)
- U.S. Soccer – official match report for USA – Turkey, scorers, statistics, lineups and notes on United States national team records (link)
- U.S. Soccer – official Group D table and results of all group matches (link)
- U.S. Soccer – preview of the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina meeting in the round of 32 of the 2026 World Cup (link)
- U.S. Soccer – information on the rotated starting lineup and record nine changes against Turkey (link)
- FIFA – official explanation of the 2026 World Cup format with 48 national teams, 104 matches and an additional knockout round (link)
- The Guardian – report from Mauricio Pochettino’s press conference after the match with Turkey (link)