gold cup

The U.S. was thoroughly outplayed by Mexico in Sunday’s CONCACAF Gold Cup final. It was outshot, outpassed, outpossessed and arguably out of its league.

Which, surprisingly, was partly the way coach Mauricio Pochettino wanted it. Because the monthlong tournament was never really about results for the U.S. It was about finding heart, grit, determination and dedication. It was about taking the pulse of his player pool a year before soccer’s biggest event returns to North America.

And those are things not easily measured by results alone.

So while Mexico deservedly won Sunday’s battle 2-1, the larger war, Pochettino believes, rages on.

U.S. defender Chris Richards celebrates with Alex Freeman, Patrick Agyemang, Malik Tillman and Diego Luna after Richards scored against Mexico in the Gold Cup final Sunday.

(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)

“That,” he said after Sunday’s final, “is the way we want to build our journey into the World Cup.”

When Pochettino gathered his team for the tournament in early June, it was missing as many as six first-choice starters for a variety of reasons. Some had club duties, some were injured. Others preferred rest over the honor of playing for their country.

So Pochettino called up a roster that averaged just 25 years of age and 14 players with fewer than five international caps and challenged them to prove they belonged. That was the team that rolled into Sunday’s final unbeaten (barely) in five Gold Cup games. That was the team that entered the final 15 minutes against a veteran Mexico squad even on the scoreboard.

If this was Pochettino’s “C” team, nobody bothered to tell the players.

“It’s an honor,” midfielder Diego Luna, who had played for the U.S. just four times before the Gold Cup, told reporters about wearing the crest. “I think every single one of these players thinks about it the same way I do. It’s the No. 1 dream that we’ve had as kids and we’re going to fight for this to have as many chances to wear it was we can.”

Credit Pochettino for taking the lemons he was handed and turning them into lemonade. After the USMNT’s listless and uninspired performance in last March’s Nations League final four, where it scored just once in back-to-back losses to Panama and Canada, the coach learned the majority of his first-choice lineup planned to pass up the Gold Cup, the team’s final competition matches before the World Cup.

If the U.S. had lost its identity, had lost its way, by the end of the Nations League, the absences of veterans Yunus Musah, Gio Reyna, Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie this summer gave Pochettino an unexpected opportunity to redefine what it meant to be a national team player. He pushed his young, inexperienced roster of fringe national team players to show how much they cared, to show they really wanted to be part of the program.

And it worked.

United States players pose for a team photo before the team’s CONCACAF Gold Cup final soccer match against Mexico in Houston on Sunday.

(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)

Luna thrust himself into contention for a World Cup roster spot through grit and hunger alone. Others such as goalkeeper Matt Freese, midfielders Sebastian Berhalter and Malik Tillman and forward Patrick Agyemang also shone brightly enough that the coach said his roster for his team’s September friendlies with South Korea and Japan, much less the World Cup, is wide open.

“All the American players have the possibility for September to be on the roster,” he said Sunday. “It’s still one year from the World Cup. But now we need to build a roster for September. We need to analyze every single player, see the circumstances, the situations, performance, fitness level.

“Don’t worry. We are people that are very open, and not closed. And who deserves to be [there] will be [there.]”

Pochettino’s message is that desire and national pride are as much a requirement to play for the national team as talent. It’s partly a bluff, of course. He won’t go far in the World Cup with Luna and Berhalter playing in place of Pulisic and McKennie because all the star-spangled celebrations in the world can’t hide the fact the team Pochettino fielded this summer was deeply flawed.

It prepared for the Gold Cup by getting outscored 6-1 in losses to Turkey and Switzerland, running the team’s losing streak to four games, its longest since 2007. The U.S. rebounded with narrow wins over Saudi Arabia and Haiti to advance out of the tournament’s group stage and in the knockout stage it beat Costa Rica on penalty kicks, then had to hold off Guatemala for a one-goal win to reach the final.

Of those six opponents, only Switzerland ranks in the world’s top 20, according to FIFA. Guatemala isn’t even in the top 100. And the loss to Mexico was the fifth in as many games against top 30 teams since Pochettino took over nine months ago.

That won’t get it done in the World Cup.

If heart, effort and belief really do matter, so does talent. That makes Pochettino’s task during the next year a simple one: he must find a way mesh the intangibles developed this summer with the talent he’ll need to win next summer.

As the players shuffled out of Houston’s NRG Stadium after Sunday’s loss, that fusion was already taking place.

“There’s a few non-negotiables now,” defender Chris Richards told reporters. “This was kind of a game-changer. … When the guys come back, these are some things that we have to hold each other accountable for. And hopefully moving forward we can add a little bit more quality to it, as well, and we’re going to be a really tough team to beat.”

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Christian Pulisic was supposed to be in St. Louis on Tuesday, preparing to play in the national soccer team’s Gold Cup semifinal with Guatemala. Instead he was standing under a freeway overpass in Culver City playing with a bunch of kids.

“This is kind of what I was, you know, born to do,” the former and perhaps future captain of the national team said. “Having this platform and being here to inspire, hopefully, the next generation and do this for kids, it’s special.”

Pulisic, 26, isn’t far removed from being a kid himself, one who grew up learning the game on mini fields not too different from the one he was opening Tuesday. But for Pulisic soccer is no longer a child’s game, it’s a business. And that has taken a lot of fun out of it.

So when Pulisic, the national team’s active leader in both appearances (78) and goals (35), decided to pass up this summer’s Gold Cup, the last major competition before next year’s World Cup, he was widely pilloried as selfish and egotistical by former national team players including Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Landon Donovan.

American Christian Pulisic is grabbed by Bolivia’s Hector Cuellar as they chase the ball during a Copa America match in Arlington, Texas, on June 23, 2024.

(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)

“I just can’t fathom turning down the privilege of representing my country,” added Alexi Lalas, who played on two World Cup teams for the U.S.

However, Pulisic says he was simply exhausted.

He played a career-high 3,650 minutes in all competition for AC Milan last season, leading the team with 11 goals and nine assists in Serie A play while appearing in 118 games for club and country in the last 22 months. He needed a break to rest both body and mind before the World Cup, when he’ll be the focus of a U.S. team playing the tournament at home for the first time in 32 years.

So after consulting with U.S. Soccer and national team coach Mauricio Pochettino, he took it, offering to play in two June friendlies — an offer Pochettino declined — but turning down an invitation to play in the Gold Cup.

The reaction was swift and hurtful, with many critics accusing Pulisic of turning his back on his country.

“To question my commitment, especially towards the national team, in my opinion that’s way out of line,” Pulisic said in his defense on a Golazo Network podcast last month.

“I don’t regret my decision. I think it’s the right thing for me.”

AC Milan’s Christian Pulisic celebrates with teammate Tijjani Reijnders after Reijnders scored against Como in Milan, Italy, on March 15.

(Antonio Calanni / Associated Press)

Given a chance to expand on that Tuesday, Pulisic declined.

“I said what I needed to say. I don’t think it’s something that I want to harp on,” he said.

But events like Tuesday’s clearly rekindle his passion for soccer by reminding him of what the game still looks like through a child’s eyes.

“To see the joy that it brings to kids’ faces and to give them a free space to just come and play and enjoy the game like I used to when I was a kid, that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “When I was around their age, that’s when I really grew the love for the game.”

His father, Mark, was a former indoor soccer player and longtime coach, so Pulisic spent much of his childhood in places just like the one in Culver City. Getting back to those basics after what has been one of the most trying months of his professional career has been a breath of fresh air and it showed because Pulisic, whose smiles are rare and generally sarcastic, was wearing a wide and sincere one Tuesday.

The play space he was visiting is the second Christian Pulisic Stomping Grounds facility in the U.S., one developed in conjunction with the global sports brand Puma. The first Stomping Ground opened two years ago in Miami and there are plans to build a third in Texas.

Wedged into an industrial area crowded with storage facilities and warehouses beneath an on-ramp to the 405 Freeway, the space, home to the Culver City Football Club, was refurbished to include mini indoor and outdoor turf fields, a putting green and a life-size chess set.

The costly update was nice, said Krist Colocho, president and chief executive of the Culver City Football Club. But having the captain of the men’s national team come to christen the site, then engage some three dozen players, ages 9 to 13, in training drills, was priceless.

“There’s no words for it,” he said. “The top player in the U.S.? It’s amazing. To get to play with him? That’s a cherry on top.”

The nonprofit club, Colocho said, is dedicated to ending the pay-for-play model that has made soccer too expensive for many kids. The Pulisic-Puma partnership will help with that.

“This is a start,” he said. “Coming from a background where soccer is difficult to afford, this is going to be one of those stepping [stones] that we work with.”

AC Milan’s Christian Pulisic celebrates after scoring against Cagliari in Milan, Italy, on May 11, 2024.

(Antonio Calanni / Associated Press)

Outside Pulisic backed toward a mini goal as 6-year-old Arih Akwafei charged forward, pushed the ball around Pulisic and tucked it into the net, then celebrated as only a 6-year-old can.

“It was fun doing everything and using our bodies to try to play soccer with him to see if he was good or not,” Arih said, gulping air between words in an effort to control her excitement. “I scored on him.”

Cameron Carr, 9, agreed.

“It’s a very big deal,” he said of Pulisic’s visit.

Asked whether he’d be happier if Pulisic was in St. Louis practicing with the national team, as so many critics had demanded, Cameron grew confused. To him the answer was as obvious as the question was stupid.

“I’m very happy that he’s taking his time to meet with us kids when he could be training,” he said.