Key Points
- Türkiye beat the USMNT 3-2 on Kaan Ayhan's goal in the 98th minute.
- Pochettino made nine changes, keeping only Weston McKennie and Ricardo Pepi.
- Christian Pulisic came off the bench in the 58th minute after a calf injury.
- The U.S. still won Group D with six points and advances to face Bosnia.
The United States lost its first match of the 2026 World Cup and barely seemed to mind. Türkiye beat the USMNT 3-2 at SoFi Stadium on Thursday on Kaan Ayhan's goal in the 98th minute — the final kick of the game — but because the U.S. had already clinched the group, the result cost it nothing in the standings.
This was a B-team by design. Mauricio Pochettino made nine changes to the side that had beaten Australia 2-0, keeping only Weston McKennie and Ricardo Pepi. Christian Pulisic, who had been managing a calf injury, stayed on the bench until the 58th minute. With a knockout spot already secured, the priority was rest and minutes, not a perfect group stage.
The makeshift lineup still traded blows. Auston Trusty put the U.S. ahead in the 3rd minute; Arda Güler (10th) and Orkun Kökçü (31st) turned it around before halftime; Sebastian Berhalter leveled it at 2-2 in the 49th. Then, deep into eight minutes of stoppage time, Ayhan headed in the winner for a Türkiye side that had already been eliminated and had been shut out across its first two matches.
The story afterward was Pochettino's mood. Asked about letting a perfect group stage slip, he pushed back at the room: "Making history is winning the World Cup, not just winning the group. It's a little bit petty, if you will." He said the questions were "a little bit weird," and that not being congratulated for topping the group was "a little bit sad." He defended the wholesale rotation as a deliberate call, balancing competing priorities with the knockouts ahead, and framed getting Pulisic minutes as "an objective" he was happy with — "he finished well."
It was the prickliness of a coach who knows the only verdict that matters starts now. The U.S. won Group D with six points and moves into the round of 32 against Bosnia and Herzegovina, set for July 1 in Santa Clara — the first knockout test of the Pochettino era, and the one he clearly wants the questions saved for.
Source: ESPN and CBS Sports.
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