There's enough blame, shame for all after USMNT's debacle vs. Switzerland

New York Times

a day ago

No one should avoid blame here.
Nothing about the U.S. men's national team's first half against Switzerland in Tuesday night's embarrassing 4-0 loss was good enough. The first 45 minutes – and all four goals were conceded in the opening 36 – were almost indescribably bad. The four-goal halftime deficit marked the worst half for the USMNT since 1980. The U.S. failed to record a shot on target in a home match for the first time since a 4-0 defeat to Argentina in the 2016 Copa América, per Opta.
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As U.S. legend DaMarcus Beasley said on the TNT broadcast: 'I've never seen a U.S. team play that poorly in a half of football.'
Players who were given a chance to win World Cup jobs got played off the field. More than that, they looked like they didn't belong at all.
That part is on Mauricio Pochettino. So let's start with the manager.
Yes, 10 players were unavailable for selection, including many of this team's biggest names. Yes, the March performances in the Nations League were not good enough. But Pochettino went too far in trying to send a message to his player pool. There are players in this group that are just straight-up not better than their available counterparts. Tuesday night showed they aren't ready to compete at the top level of international soccer.
Europe-based players like Tanner Tessmann, Josh Sargent and Joe Scally haven't always performed their best for the U.S., but when the Americans take the field at the World Cup in a year, they have the quality to actually compete. And they were left at home.
What Brian Dunseth said on the TNT broadcast at halftime was spot on.
'It's not a lack of desire to compete. It's an inability to compete,' he said, before offering an even more important point.
'There's a silver lining somewhere in the conversation that he's learning a lot about this group — who can compete at this level,' he continued 'Before maybe you face lesser teams like Haiti in the (Gold Cup) group stage.'
Yes.
In the same way Pochettino left players at home because he felt their efforts weren't good enough, there has to be a response to this performance – an acknowledgement, whether in the Gold Cup or in September, that the pool is what it is.
The idea of this Gold Cup seemed to be to try to inject competition into this U.S. team. Instead, what Pochettino is learning is its limitations. The U.S. needs to get better, yes. But in reality, time needs to be spent developing players who are actually going to help the team compete in the 2026 World Cup. The pool simply isn't deep enough. If that wasn't clear enough before, it's obvious now.
In his press conference announcing the roster, Pochettino was asked about some of the European-based players left off in favor of MLS players. He said the players were at the same level. Tuesday night showed that's simply not true.
The U.S. lacked some of the desire it needed in March. But the pool has clearly been stretched beyond its limits. Regardless of what happens in the Gold Cup, we saw players who can and can't be counted on against quality opponents. That's an important lesson as this team moves into the fall. Maybe there's a player or two that can be pulled in at specific positions, but part of Pochettino's job is to get more out of guys like Tessmann, Sargent or Scally.
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Alex Freeman, who started vs. Turkey Saturday but did not feature Tuesday, is capable of winning the backup right back job behind Sergiño Dest, for example. But Scally, no matter his past struggles in a U.S. shirt, is good enough to be on this Gold Cup team, and if you need a fullback in the World Cup, he's higher on the depth chart right now than the starters Tuesday against Switzerland.
That has to be understood by Pochettino. He put his hand up for the starting lineup he chose, saying it was 'my responsibility.' But he didn't fully give up on the idea that something positive can be taken out of this roster.
'After one month working together, some players that maybe you don't think had the possibility to be in the roster at the World Cup, could be. Maybe someone can surprise us. It's a good opportunity,' Pochettino said. 'At the same time, you take a risk when you compete with this level of opponent. … When you face these type of players [on Switzerland] and a team that is very solid like Turkey, also. Yes, it's a risk. It's a risk because you have [this type of] experience in this [kind of] international competition.
'But I think we are a much better team and much better coaches after a defeat like this because I think you learn. If you are intentional, you learn. And for sure, for the future, we are going to take different decisions to be more competitive with the possibility to win.'
Winning hasn't come easy for Pochettino. He is the first USMNT head coach to lose five of his first 10 games since Lothar Osiander (1986-88), per TruMedia, and he has overseen the program's first four-game losing streak in 18 years. He needs to find his group, create an identity and start getting results. He pointed out that he and his staff have now seen 60 players in their time with the U.S. After Tuesday, the reality is that the pool of U.S. players that can compete against top teams in the World Cup isn't more than 20 deep.
Now let's address those players.
It's clear many are simply not up to the level, but the game goes beyond that. Some of the most disheartening moments came as the goals kept piling up. Somehow, Swiss players were still running by people. No one was fouling. No one looked angry. They just gave the space. And more goals came.
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'Forget not being good enough. They didn't put in a tackle,' Beasley said. 'I'm not saying they don't want to play in the game, but this is your chance to make a World Cup squad. This is your chance. There's no [Christian] Pulisic. There's no Weston McKennie. There's no one. This is your time to step up and they put out that 45 minutes? Terrible. Just terrible.'
Pochettino has said it multiple times over the past week. This camp was about injecting desire and work rate back into the team. He smiled about being able to talk about soccer mistakes on Saturday night after a loss to Turkey. The lack of that fight on Tuesday felt just as prominent as the lack of quality. It was baffling.
The players have to respond, which veteran U.S. center back Walker Zimmerman acknowledged clearly.
'It's easy to look at one half and say this is all going to pieces, that we can't come back from this,' Zimmerman told TNT. 'But you look at the build up even to 2022, we take down Morocco 3-0 and they make a semifinal. Things change. That was six months apart. So, it's not the end of the world. We accept that it's not good enough and we realize that. That's where the disappointment comes in, but we have to flip the script and we've gotta make sure we do not come out like that ever again.'
The lessons were plentiful on Tuesday – and the reverberations need to stretch well beyond the next few weeks in the Gold Cup.