LOS ANGELES - The U.S. men's national team could find ways to dismiss the loss to Panama - perhaps - even with the prior history. It was a fluke, a bad break. One shot, one goal, one loss - if the USMNT had that kind of luck on the other side, they would have been through easily. These things happen in soccer, many around the team said. It was a bad day and a bad result.
There's no dismissing Sunday's dismal performance, though. There's no waving around and calling the loss to Canada a fluke. No, for most of Sunday's CONCACAF Nations League third-place game, the USMNT were second best and, as a result, they were beaten once again, this time 2-1 by Canada. Winners in each of the first three editions of this tournament, the U.S. finished fourth of four. An embarrassing result, to put it lightly.
It started early, with Canada motivated early on. They rightfully got their goal in the 27th minute through Tani Oluwaseyi, who finally burned the USMNT after they played with fire one too many times. The U.S. woke up after that, finishing the first half strong with Diego Luna and Patrick Agyemang combining on a 35th-minute equalizer from the Charlotte FC star.
The second half, though, was flat once again. Canada emerged from the locker room with fire, so much so that their coach, Jesse Marsch, was sent off for arguing a penalty call in the 54th minute. Just five minutes later, Jonathan David's curled effort picked out a corner.
"Obviously disappointed, yeah," said Christian Pulisic, who was U.S. captain for the Canada match but failed to score in either game this week. "We’ve got to come back from this, of course. We’re not at our best at the moment. Now all we can do is go be examples at our clubs every day, be the best we can be - that’s how the national team is - and when we come back, of course some things need to change.
"And we need to improve. We’re going to look back and see what that is - I don’t have all the answers at the moment."
U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino made five changes to the lineup from the semifinal. Cameron Carter-Vickers and Mark McKenzie were the center back pairing, while Columbus Crew defender Max Arfsten was inserted on the left. Diego Luna also started, and up top, Agyemang got the nod. Canada outshot the U.S., 8-5, and while the USMNT won the possession battle at 59.6 percent, Canada spent more time in its attacking third.
Despite the Luna-Agyemang combination on the lone U.S. goal, Marsch and Canada got one over on the USMNT - leaving his counterpart, Pochettino, shaking his head.
If Thursday's loss was a wake-up call, this was a full-blown alarm. They say once is a fluke and twice is a coincidence, but there was nothing coincidental about this. This time, the U.S. were rightfully beaten, and this disappointing side will need to reckon with that as the clock ticks toward the 2026 World Cup.
GOAL rates the USMNT's players from SoFi Stadium.