Weah kicks off a goal party; Pulisic is captain Maga: five things we learned from the USMNT | USA

Weah kicks off a goal celebration

Tim Weah is a big reason why Mauricio Pochettino is USMNT head coach – the winger’s 18th-minute red card for striking Panama defender Roderick Miller in the Copa América in June probably cost Gregg Berhalter his job.

After Weah’s dismissal, Folarin Balogun only gave the USA the lead for the ten men to concede twice in what proved to be a decisive loss that doomed Berhalter, who watched from the stands in St Louis on Monday as Weah catalysed a stunning attacking performance by Pochettino’s team.

USA beat Jamaica 4-2 on the night (5-2 on aggregate) to advance to the Concacaf Nations League semi-finals in Los Angeles next March, adding another useful competitive fixture for the new manager as he looks to battle for to harden the fight. team ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Victory also ensured that the USA qualified for the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup.

Weah’s pointless and uncharacteristic mistakes last summer were a very visible symbol of the creeping dysfunction under Berhalter: a loss of discipline, cohesion and creativity at different points in different games, suggesting that the project had lost its forward momentum. The exit of the Copa group provided tangible evidence.

On Monday, however, the positivity flowed as the USA compiled some inspired attacking combinations, with Weah, Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah and Antonee Robinson moving into dangerous areas and providing the kind of flair and invention that has been in short supply without the oft-injured playmaker, Gio Reyna .

Starting from the left, Weah set the tone by crashing a shot over the post in the fourth minute and thumped the fourth goal into the second half. Meanwhile, Christian Pulisic scored from a perfectly weighted McKennie cross and forced a second when his shot was deflected into the net for what looked like an own goal. As in the first leg last Thursday, Ricardo Pepi contributed with a precisely angled finish. It was Weah’s first international appearance since his red card five months ago and clearly he was determined to make up for lost time.

“It was a great performance,” Pulisic told TNT. “We should definitely feel good after these results. We’re learning a lot of new things, of course, with the new coach some things have changed. And I think it’s coming together well today and hopefully we can just keep improving us.”

Fringe benefits for Pochettino

A year after guiding Chelsea to a 4-4 Premier League draw with Manchester City at Stamford Bridge, a fantastic game voted as the best in the Premier League season, this was another four-goal haul for Pochettino, although the opposition were much less gifted and the setting not quite as impressive: second leg in a Nations League quarter-final in a small stadium with more than a few empty seats .

The 52-year-old’s first competitive win as international boss came in Thursday’s 1-0 win in Kingston, an unedifying and very Concacaf night on a pitch so heavy and uneven it deserved to be traversed by quad motorbikes. Two months into the role, Pochettino has won three of his first four games, with the only defeat coming in Mexico last month with a team missing key members through injury.

This was easily the best display of the four, although Pochettino is yet to coach Reyna, Tyler Adams, Sergino Dest and Balogun and will not see them in a competitive American game until March at the earliest, when the Americans will be looking to win the Nations League for the fourth time in a row. The absence has at least allowed him to get a good look at fringe players such as Tanner Tessmann, who was reliable, and Pepi, whose well-taken goal was his first for his country since last October, giving Pochettino food for thought in terms of who will be his central striker when Balogun is fit again.

Captain America is Captain Maga

It was a history-making night for Pulisic, who became the fastest player in USMNT history to contribute 50 goals or assists and the first to create a target party that copies the dance of a convicted felon and convicted rapist.

Yes, it’s a silly dance. But a large part of the United States is not in the mood for joking references to Donald Trump’s return to the White House – the parts of the population that, for example, value democracy, civil rights, science and facts. Yet after scoring, America’s talismanic striker decided to join a craze that hit the NFL and UFC, popularized by a Trumpy San Francisco 49ers player who apparently didn’t get the memo about how athletes should stick to sports.

After McKennie and Pepi briefly joined in imitating Trump’s dancing style, Pulisic was congratulated for his goal by Yunus Musah (born in New York to Ghanaian parents, a beneficiary of birthright citizenship, a constitutional right Trump wants to end). “It is not a political dance. It was just for fun,” Pulisic said Athletics. “I saw a lot of people doing it and I thought it was funny, so I enjoyed it,” he added: an attitude that is either disingenuous or unusually naive.

Whatever the intent, the nation’s best and most famous player is now one right-wing media hero hailed for owning libs. This was the face of U.S. Soccer, however cheery, volunteering for duty in the culture wars and appearing to place itself at the opposite end of the political spectrum for many fans and the USWNT, whose advocates have drawn Trump’s ire .

All in all, an easy move from the Hershey-born 26-year-old, proving that Pennsylvania is a swing state, but not a swinging one. It would have been nice to enjoy a night off from divisive politics and simply appreciate an excellent performance under an exciting new coach whose salary is financed by (checks notes) … a billionaire who recently has donated $100 million to republican causes.

Do you want to allow content provided by a third party?

This article includes content hosted on embed.bsky.app. We ask for your permission before loading anything, as the provider may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’.

Age is nothing but a number

Tim Ream is so age-defying that a cosmetics company should sign him as the face of their next ad campaign. But he is 37 and has captained all four of Pochettino’s games. A surprise pick for the 2022 World Cup roster, having essentially been scrapped by Berhalter during the qualifying campaign only due to injuries to create an opening, Ream is now a linchpin in the defense despite entering his late thirties and have exchanged Fulham for Charlotte.

It’s a remarkable tale of endurance and ability, but will he really be a starting center back in 2026? And if not, why isn’t Pochettino trialling alternatives given the limited time he has before the tournament? The game was won at halftime on Monday, but Jamaica still had the American backline creaking on a couple of occasions and sloppy defending contributed to their two goals. Central defense is the team’s most problematic position. Although Ream continues to mature like Missouri’s answer to Thiago Silva, it is not clear who his partner will be, with Mark McKenzie unconvincing against Jamaica.

Pochettino believes in equality

As a newcomer to American football, he perhaps made an extra effort to be polite. Still, it was notable that Pochettino, who spent his entire coaching career in Europe before taking charge of the United States, spoke about MLS on Sunday and said being part of the league was no obstacle to selection. “For me, they will have the same opportunity to play in MLS (as) if they played in the Premier League or in La Liga or in Belgium, in France,” he told reporters.

A decade ago, Jurgen Klinsmann’s clear-eyed speech about MLS’s inferiority to Europe ignited one war of words with league commissioner Don Garber. He was offended by Klinsmann’s dim view of Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley’s return to MLS: high-profile PR coups made a little less coup by comments from the then-national team head coach that evoked the dirtiest words in the MLS lexicon: r*ti*em*nt play.

Klinsmann argued that it is more difficult for top players to maintain high standards in a lower-level competition. But playing regularly against weaker opposition can boost confidence and form and is certainly preferable to sitting on the bench in Europe – as goalkeeper Matt Turner may soon conclude. Not overtaxed in St Louis, he saved a penalty against Jamaica last week. But he has made just 17 league starts since moving from MLS to England in 2022.

“After getting to know MLS, it’s not easy to play here, it’s very physical,” Pochettino said. MLS has expanded greatly in size over the past decade, but the addition of eleven clubs since 2015 (with another one on the way in 2025) has spread the talent more thinly.

The league can revive a gone or fading career, but stalwarts like Jesús Ferreira, Aaron Long and Walker Zimmerman have looked overmatched at the international level against sharper opposition outside of Concacaf. It’s not about lacking physical attributes; it’s about not having the know-how that comes from working every day with the world’s best. As a coach, Berhalter did not have that experience either; at least Pochettino does.

Lauding MLS is also pragmatic for Pochettino as the next training camp, for a friendly against Venezuela in Florida on January 18 and another match to be announced, will include MLS players, while the European-based majority will remain with their clubs. It makes no sense to discourage participants.

And chances are a significant minority of the 2026 World Cup squad will be drawn from MLS: Two years ago, the 26-man Qatar roster named by Berhalter contained nine such names. Pochettino’s already selected players based in Scotland and the English second tier: a sign of the limited depth of the talent pool. No matter the caliber of MLS, he’s going to need it.