Mistakes cost USMNT in 2-1 loss to Türkiye

The US Men’s National Team kicked off their summer schedule with a match on a rainy day in East Hartford, Connecticut against the national team of Türkiye. Unfortunately, fate wound up raining on their day and the team walked out to a 2-1 defeat.

The camp itself had a lot of scrutiny, not just because of the impending World Cup hosted here in the US (jointly alongside Canada and Mexico), but also because of the numerous names of star players missing from the roster. Even with that, Mauricio Pochettino elected to start a rather experimental starting XI, with veterans like Tyler Adams, Matt Turner, and Brenden Aaronson starting on the bench. Instead, we saw goalkeeper Matt Freese and fullback Alex Freeman getting their fast caps, while Jack McGlynn, Diego Luna, and Max Arfsten started with under 5 caps. A very new look indeed.

Things certainly started off very well. Within the first mintue, McGlynn, playing on the right wing, was played into space at halffield, ran down the length of the pitch, cut a little inside towards goal, took one little touch, then a second, and then put in a gorgeous, arcing shot into the bottom far corner, all from outside the corner of the penatly books.

Simply sublime.

From there, the US took the game under control. They weren’t generating all that much threat, but they were controlling the pace of the game and, given that they were already ahead, were in a dominant and calm position. They were looking for their moment, with McGlynn putting a second similar attempt over the bar in the 10th minute.

And then calamity.

In the 24th minute, Matt Freese played an entirely inocous ball inside his own box to Johnny Cardoso. Johnny took two somewhat-awkward touches towards his own goal and, while under no immediate pressure, kicked the ball into the knee of Türkiye’s number 10, Arda Güler. As it turns out, dumb, awful, ugly goals count just as much as those crafted from strokes of genius. 1-1.

From there, the USMNT found themselves flailing. Within 3 minutes, the Turks were again in front of goal, this time driving down into the box from their left side. A low cross was put in across the face of goal in front of the American backline but nobody cut it out before Oğuz Aydın put the ball back in towards the middle. It richoted off of Miles Robinson, the US couldn’t clear, and Kerem Aktürkoğlu scrambled faster, putting it in past a helpless Matt Freese. 2-1

Mere minutes later, Türkiye was attacking again, this time driving to the top of the box before shotting from outside of the box for Freece to make a relatively calm save. And then again, in the 35th minute, with a looping ball into the box and a volley from Aktürkoğlu that luckily was rather tame again for Freece. And with that, the Americans were rather grateful when the whistle blew and the half came to an end.

The USMNT needed a change to correct their fortunes and Pochettino complied, swapping Cardoso for Tyler Adams, and Mark McKenzie for Robinson.

The changes were effective in stabalizing and solidifying the US, but didn’t do enough to change the result. There were moments… Diego Luna snapped onto a loose Turkish pass in the 53rd minute to feed Patrick Agyemang for a free shot on goal only for Agyemang to put it right at the keeper. Luna again was feeder in the 61st, this time to Jack McGlynn who didn’t manage to bury that one. The ball bounced back to the top of the box where Adams picked it up with a good drive forward. He put in a good cross to the back post, but Agyemang couldn’t put it past the Turkish keeper.

Then, came more big changes. McGlynn and Luna came off in the 65th minute for new-comers Quinn Sullivan and Nathan Harriel of the Philadelphia Union for thier first caps. Haji Wright joined them, coming on for Arfsten and slotting into the right wing spot in place of McGlynn. And from there, the US’s attack rather petered out. Brian White would come on for Agymang in the 74th, but the US wasn’t able to make anything more of it in terms of offense. Türkiye did actually have a change themselves in the waning minutes of the half, but attacker Barış Alper Yılmaz put his shot well wide of goal.

This most certainly was not the result that Pochettino and the USMNT were looking for, extending their losing streak to 3 games. They team will have to figure out how to put things together in just a few days, with a friendly against Switzerland on June 10th before the Gold Cup starts on June 15th.