As the U.S. men’s national team left the pitch and retreated to their locker room after the Concacaf Gold Cup final, they couldn’t stop thinking about the situations that led to their demise.
The lessons from the summer and the moments from the final will circulate in the heads of the players and head coach Mauricio Pochettino for months, in a constant cycle of frustration and dreaming of what could have been.
Despite getting out to an early lead against Mexico, the USMNT fell 2–1 in front of over 72,000 fans in Houston on Sunday, dropping their final competitive game ahead of next year’s FIFA World Cup and missing a golden opportunity to change the narrative around the team.
Frustration was the theme post-match, especially when it came to the non-called handball in the penalty area by Mexico’s Jorge Sanchez in the 67th minute. While the interpretation of the rule allowed Sanchez to fall on the ball as he did, that didn’t matter to Pochettino or the players.
“The thing about Concacaf is that I feel like we’re always one step behind with the refereeing,” goalscorer and center back Chris Richards told after the match. “Homie palmed the ball like Shaq in the box.”
A fiery Pochettino added: “I’m not going to cry. I wanted to tell the truth, and the truth was that if that happened in the opposite box, for sure it’s a penalty.”
Meanwhile, Richards also criticized the linesman’s call on a 77th-minute free kick which led to Edson Alvarez’s winning goal, where a Mexican defender appeared to be standing in an offside position. “In any other league, it would've been called offsides,” he huffed. “But again, that’s Concacaf for you. They hate us.”
While the USMNT brought an evident passion to the tournament and the final, unlike anything that the team has seen in years, it simply wasn’t enough to make a difference against Mexico. The drive and grit were there, but the quality and coaching flexibility simply weren’t up to El Tri’s standard, leaving them grasping at excuses.
“My players don’t deserve this,” Pochettino added. “If we lose, we lose. No problem. I am the first to say we need to improve. I am not crying. I am not saying [anything] against Mexico. I respect Mexico, full respect, and I have congratulated them from the beginning.
“I only say that if that happened again, would the coach or the players be talking the same way? For me, it will be a fire in the stadium. But for us, it’s like, ‘okay, they’re nice guys.’ You know? ‘They’re nice guys. It’s not a problem.”
