6 min readJun 26, 2026 11:05 AM IST
The twist of the knife was cruelly saved for the last minute of the game. The contest locked at 2-2, a draw, a befitting result for a frantic and error-replete game, Kaan Ayhan stabbed the ball into the nets. A collective pause shook the stadium. For the first time in the World Cup, co-hosts USMNT lost a game. Suddenly, the sold-out crowd, among them half the Hollywood celebrities, stopped reacting. The myth and the illusion of the country as trophy contended, came falling down like a castle of dreams built in a Hollywood basement.
The team lingered and applauded the crowd, consoled them not to worry. After all, this was an inconsequential game, fraught with risks rather than rewards. The manager Mauricio Pochettino is a wise man, he imperilled defeat for yellow cards that could have seen some of his regulars miss the round-of-32 game, or a senior player getting injured or fatigued.
He was willing to gamble the momentum, and the glowy bounce winning streaks can inject. The margins were minuscule — had they not conceded the last-minute goal, or one of Christian Pulisic’s strikes not hit the woodwork and crashed it, his tactics would have been glorified as masterstrokes.
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But whether it would be a defeat for the better or not, only time would tell. For last-minute goals would leave psychological scars than a routine, for it is not so much about the skills and tactics as it is about the mentality. Will USMNT recover from the shock? Weston McKennie, their captain for the night, is certain his team’s momentum would not be disrupted. “I think the momentum will be there for sure. Everybody wants to go into the game winning the previous game. Obviously we didn’t do that tonight, but I think that’s going to motivate us even more.”
But the game slashed forth the hosts’ vulnerabilities. The pandemonium of the makeshift defence could vex the manager. All of the back four plus the goalkeeper were second or third choice alternatives. Pochettino did not want those in yellow to accumulate another card and be benched from the round-of-32 fixture. He wanted some of the ageing stalwarts to rest and recover for the gruels ahead. But the product he beheld, even if that be his back-up squad, terrified him.
The defence structure went off-kilter, predominantly originating from their ponderous transition. They occupied a higher defensive line than usual, shedding the mid-block they had embraced so far in the tournament to limit the opponent’s final-third touches. He eschewed the double-pivot ploy that had worked fruitfully, simply because he didn’t have alternatives on the bench. The result was a structural catastrophe with the hosts asserting little control on the game. Bolstered by the second-minute goal, they committed too much upfield, hovered far too aggressively for a second goal, and left far little cover at the back. Maybe, it was the over enthusiasm of those that had bench-warmed for most of the tournament.
Turkey’s Kaan Ayhan, second from right, scores their third goal against United States. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Both Turkey goals were simple. Get the ball into the box, find space and shoot. The communication between Miles Robinson and Mark McKenzie were akin to two strangers walking in opposite directions in a New York subway, their vibes cold and frosty. Each thought the other would perform the tidying up when lper Yılmaz waltzed through them and found Arda Güler to equalise. Joe Scally and Robinson combined in the second faux pas that saw Orkun Kökçü nail home Turkey’s second goal. Guler took our four defenders with a simple slide-rule pass. Scally left Elmali utterly unmarked and his cut back sliced past a petrified Robinson.
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When they attacked they were thrilling, hounding the Turkish defence, carrying the ball with a maddening zeal and untrammelled energy. Only that they were caught napping when defending, when the Turks made quick and seamless transitions. There was space vaster than the Gulf of Izmir to attack. The backlash of pressing high, an ideal Pochettino dropped for want of conduits, was severe.
It was Pochettino’s worst fear turning into a nightmare. His lack of defensive depth. And his only prayer was that his first choice backline could play all the minutes in all the games (or game). He walked a tightrope between sacrificing momentum for the freshness of his players.
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But there were moments that they would cherish. This one was it. Sebastian Berhalter propelled a rocket through the narrowest space between a mangle of bodies, his own and the opponents. Weirdly, it traversed a near-straight line and ripped into the nets. Fury seized Berhalter, son or former coach Gregg, who was watching from the stands. He sprinted with the ball and placed it at the centre circle, urging his opponents to resume the game. The crowd, muted by the second goal, erupted again. The intensity of USMNT in a dead-rubber revealed the bounce of belief they are riding.
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The biggest, and perhaps the only meaningful, takeaway from the match was the supreme mobility of the Christian Pulisic returning from an injury that had ruled him out of the Australia game. The jewel in USMNT’s crown, its undisputed talisman, he struck the crossbar and kissed the post with a curling brute. His movements betrayed little discomfort or weariness, but an alacrity to plot the winner. It didn’t arrive, they lost at the final second of the game. The night ended in heartbreak. But the question is whether it’s the last or the first of many.
