United States Suffers Devastating Loss to Panama
A late error costs the U.S. big time in the Concacaf Nations League Semifinal
Mauricio Pochettino and the United States Men’s National Team returned to action on Thursday as they squared off against Panama in the Concacaf Nations League Semifinal.
Matt Turner made his 50th cap for the U.S. as he got the start in goal behind the back line of Joe Scally, Tim Ream, Chris Richards, and Yunus Musah. Tyler Adams and Tanner Tessmann were deep in the midfield, with Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, and Tim Weah higher up. Josh Sargent was the lone attacker up top.
It looked as if the United States found the equalizer in the 25th minute when Sargent drilled the ball into the back of the net, but Weah was offside in the lead-up to Sargent’s strike, which took the goal off the board.
Despite good efforts from both sides, neither found the advantage in the opening half as things remained scoreless after 45 minutes.
Poch’s first changes came in the 68th minute when Patrick Agyemang and Jack McGlynn replaced Sargent and Tessmann.
Richards received the first booking of the game in the 72nd minute following a hard tackle on Cecilio Waterman. Pochettino went to the bench again in the 80th minute as Mark McKenzie replaced Richards.
A sprawling ball forward from McKennie came close to setting up the opener for the United States. Agyemang sprinted onto the ball and withstood pressure from Carlos Harvey as he attempted to find the right side of the net. Orlando Mosquera was alert to Agyemang’s attempt as he stretched to make the save and keep the game deadlocked.\
Things broke down for the United States in the closing minutes of stoppage time. A poor backward header from Pulisic led the ball to the feet of Coco Carrasquilla. Carrasquilla slotted the ball to Cecilio Waterman on the right flank and he proceeded to laser a shot to the bottom-left corner that evaded the reach of Matt Turner and crashed into the net to give Panama a late lead.
Time was the United State’s enemy as Panama held on in the closing minutes to secure a 1-0 victory and punched their ticket to their first Concacaf Nations League final. Pochettino and the United States will look to secure third place when they face the loser between Canada and Mexico on Sunday, March 23, at 6 PM ET.