Kaan Ayhan's last kick sinks USMNT, but the U.S. still wins Group D
A dead-rubber on paper turned into eight minutes of stoppage-time theatre — and a reminder of what Mauricio Pochettino still has to fix before the knockouts.
On the last kick of the match, Kaan Ayhan slid in Can Uzun's cross, and a game that meant nothing in the table suddenly meant a great deal to the 70,000 inside SoFi Stadium. Türkiye 3, United States 2. The hosts had already won Group D. They wanted the clean sweep more.
It started like a procession. Auston Trusty rose to head home Sebastian Berhalter's corner inside three minutes, his first goal for the national team, and the early lead fit the pattern of a United States side that has scored first in every match of this tournament. Then the pattern broke.
Türkiye, eliminated and playing only for pride, were the sharper team for long stretches. Arda Güler levelled after a quick counter, then set up Orkun Kökçü for a superb strike that put the visitors ahead before halftime. For the first time at this World Cup, the Americans were behind.
The response, at least, was real. Berhalter blasted in a second-half set-piece to make it 2-2, and Christian Pulisic, on at the hour mark after starting on the bench, was denied by a fine Uğurcan Çakır save. A draw looked settled. Then Güler found another gear in stoppage time, Uzun crossed, and Ayhan arrived.
Here is the honest reading, and Mauricio Pochettino knows it. He made nine changes, rested players on yellow cards, and gave debutants a run, exactly what a coach should do once a group is secured. So the result goes in a drawer. What doesn't is the way his second string conceded three to a team with nothing to play for. The depth that a 48-team World Cup demands looked, on Thursday night, a level short of the first eleven.
The numbers around the U.S. campaign still read well. A 4-1 win over Paraguay, a 2-0 win over Australia, and top spot in the group. Reaching two wins in a single World Cup is something the U.S. men have managed only twice before, in 1930 and 2002, and this is the first time they have done it as co-hosts in front of their own crowd.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is the reward, on Wednesday in Santa Clara. Win it and the road runs through Seattle, then back to Inglewood, then Texas — a home draw that gets friendlier the longer the Americans survive. The U.S. men have won exactly one knockout match in their entire World Cup history, against Mexico in 2002. The crowd that has watched first-time nations break through this tournament would like a second.
Pochettino got his rotation and his rest. He also got a problem to chew on for five days. Both can be true.
