The USMNT lost 3-2 to Turkey in the Group D finale, and Mauricio Pochettino was right to do what he did. That’s exactly what makes Thursday night alarming.
Pochettino made nine changes at SoFi Stadium. Nine. He protected Tyler Adams, Folarin Balogun, Antonee Robinson, and Chris Richards from yellow-card accumulation that would have cost him players in the knockout round. He rested Christian Pulisic’s calf ahead of a July 1 date with Bosnia. The math is not complicated.
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This was a calculated decision by a coach who knows exactly what he’s doing with roster management. The USA won Group D with six points, their best-ever group stage finish at a World Cup. Pochettino said it plainly after the final whistle: “The mood is like we [are going] home tonight and Türkiye is staying… we won the group.” He’s not wrong. Turkey goes home. The US advances. That’s the correct outcome.
Here’s what the USMNT Turkey loss 2026 actually revealed: when you pull the starters, the backup squad cannot close.
USA scored in the third minute through Auston Trusty. Up 1-0 inside three minutes against a team already eliminated. The B-squad couldn’t hold it. Arda Güler equalized around the 20th minute. Orkun Kökçü put Turkey ahead by the 31st. Sebastian Berhalter answered in the 49th to make it 2-2. And then, in the 98th minute, the absolute final touch of the match: Kaan Ayhan. A consolation win for a team going home, secured against a US side that had ninety-eight minutes to not lose.
I watch a lot of soccer and that closing sequence is going to live in my head for a while.
The depth problem has been visible all tournament. Pulisic entered in the 58th minute, made the team immediately more fluid, hit the post, and somehow still got nutmegged by Güler in the sequence that led directly to the game-winner. Even the best player on the field, the one Pochettino was protecting, couldn’t prevent the collapse once the B-squad had already set the conditions for it. Matt Turner had suspect moments throughout and allowed the final goal through his legs.
What Pochettino’s rotation decision exposed is the USMNT Turkey loss 2026 version of a problem that cuts deeper than one result: the depth behind the first-choice eleven is not reliable enough to hold a lead for 90 minutes against a side with nothing to play for. That’s the actual finding here. Not the loss. The loss is fine, strategically. The finding is that when the B-squad needs to see out a game, they can’t.
This matters for Bosnia on July 1 because knockout rounds don’t care about group stage math. If the US goes behind against Bosnia and Pochettino has to manage Pulisic’s minutes again, the closing-depth problem ahead of Bosnia is exactly what the bench confirmed as real tonight. The Pochettino rotation was right but the execution raised questions that won’t resolve before Levi’s Stadium. You can look at how Brazil has been handling World Cup rotation and see a squad where depth tiers are tight enough that mass changes don’t produce a 98th-minute collapse. The USMNT is not there yet.
None of this is a panic argument. The group stage is won. The first-choice eleven is healthy and rested. Pulisic is fresh. For more on the knockout picture, follow our World Cup coverage as it develops.
Bosnia won’t care how good the reasons were.
