The U.S. men’s national team knew the importance of winning the Concacaf Gold Cup final, but fell short to Mexico 2–1 in front of a sold-out crowd of over 72,000 in Houston.
Although the crowd heavily favored El Tri, the USMNT supporters were vocal and heard throughout, especially in the early stages as head coach Mauricio Pochettino’s team attacked at a feverish pace.
The U.S. opened the scoring in just the third minute with a goal from Chris Richards, who headed home a curled-in free kick from Sebastian Berhalter to take the lead. Although the ball bounced off the crossbar and out, the referee deemed it official, even without confirmation, due to the Gold Cup’s lack of Goal-line Technology.
It didn’t take long for Mexico to respond, though, with Raúl Jiménez scoring in the 27th minute to tie the match. Edson Àlvarez then hit the back of the net in the 77th minute to win the game and secure Mexico’s 10th Gold Cup title.
Now, neither side will play another competitive game ahead of next year’s FIFA World Cup.
Here are three takeaways from the USMNT’s loss.
Missed Opportunity
The USMNT had a chance to rewrite the narratives heading into next year’s FIFA World Cup with a win against Mexico on the biggest stage Concacaf has to offer.
Yet throughout Sunday’s match, minds shifted to the players missing. It was evident that a little more game-changing talent likely would have been enough to make a difference. After shutting out much of the talk of missing stars, the outlook shifted back that way, overshadowing much of the good that had come out of the run to the final.
While there were undoubted bright spots throughout the tournament, the end record has the USMNT only beating No. 100 Trinidad and Tobago, No. 83 Haiti, No. 58 Saudi Arabia and No. 106 Guatemala, while needing penalties to get past No. 54 Costa Rica, before falling to No. 17 Mexico.
The winning moments provided a couple of weeks of levity this summer, after dropping friendly results against Türkiye and Switzerland. Still, it was clear that the problems within the USMNT persisted, and they were once again unable to come up in big moments against a highly competitive side.
Now, Pochettino and the rest of the group will have to assess their performances not only against smaller teams but also against Mexico, Switzerland and Türkiye to determine what needs to be tweaked as they prepare to face much better competition next summer.
