LOS ANGELES - There was an odd moment just after the final whistle of the U.S. men's national team's underwhelming CONCACAF Nations League campaign. The players sat slumped, frustrated, perhaps even embarrassed. Behind them, the advertising boards the wrap around the field at SoFi Stadium kept cycling.
Suddenly one ad board flashed: Watch the documentary Pulisic on Paramount+.
The subject of that series, Christian Pulisic, meanwhile, stood off to the side, a picture of frustration after a nightmare week for the USMNT. For the first time, there was no celebration at the end of a USMNT Nations League run. They were long gone by the time confetti hit the field for the 2025 champions - yet that Pulisic ad kept scrolling across stadium billboards deep into the night.
There wasn't much to see from Pulisic or the rest of the USMNT in a pair of dismal, humbling performances this week. After three straight CONCACAF Nations League titles, the U.S. is no longer king of the region. This time, it was Mexico that was bathed in confetti under the bright lights of SoFi Stadium, having beaten Panama.
As international breaks go, this was about as bad as it gets. The USMNT was stunned by Panama in the semifinals, ending their hopes of another trophy. The challenge then was to respond in the third-place game against Canada. That didn't happen. The only American smiling as he left SoFi was Jesse Marsch, having just masterminded Canada’s 2-1 win over his home country.
In the grand scheme, sure, a trophy is nice. But for Mauricio Pochettino and the USMNT, bigger concerns loom. Roughly 14 months from the kickoff of the 2026 World Cup - hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada - the USMNT dropped to yet another low, and the road ahead looks more treacherous than ever. Even with Pochettino, at the helm, this team can't seem to avoid crashing into everything in its path.
Reassessments will be made - from Pochettino on down. Maybe, in time, this will be viewed in retrospect as a necessary wake-up call. That’s Pochettino’s hope, at least.
“In different years at the World Cup, you see teams that were building and they were not good when they arrived,” Pochettino said Sunday night. “I want to send the message to the fans: don’t be pessimistic and don’t have bad feelings. Things can happen, but I see the opposite. The main objective is the World Cup.”
It's been said that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it. It's up to Pochettino and a deflated player pool to make determine what that response will be.
“Today, you had the floor and tomorrow, you can be up here,” Pochettino said. “I am very optimistic, a positive guy, even when I'm being angry and upset and disappointed. I want to find the positive things we can take from these two games. Who knows? No one knows how we are going to arrive at the World Cup and perform and, for sure, if these games are going to affect us, they are going to affect us in a positive way.”
Even amid the disappointment, some players took steps toward their World Cup ambitions. Others took steps back. Whose stock rose at the Nations League, and whose fell? GOAL takes a look.