EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — United States men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino insists his players deserved a better result after falling 2-1 to Turkey at Pratt & Whitney Stadium on Saturday to suffer a third consecutive loss.
Jack McGlynn kicked off the scoring in the first minute of the game before two goals in less than three minutes from Arda Güler and Kerem Aktürkoğlu dealt the U.S. a loss in its first of two friendlies ahead of this summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup.
The Americans dropped to 5-4 under Pochettino, who took over after first-round elimination at last year’s Copa América led the U.S. Soccer Federation to fire coach Gregg Berhalter. They have lost three straight for the second time in a year.
Pochettino is the first USMNT coach since Jurgen Klinsmann in 2015 to lose three games in a row.
“The performance was good,” Pochettino told reporters. “We faced a team like Turkey, which is a very good team with the experienced players at the top. This group of players after playing together for the first time, I think we started the game so well. We played 20 minutes at a high level. We did very good things, very good things.
“It had an emotional impact when we conceded after we scored in the second minute, after we conceded the first, we conceded the second goal and that was difficult.
“I am really sad because I think this group of players are working so hard and I think we deserved a better result today. But if we go to only focus on the performance, I think we perform really well and now we can be focused on how we can improve on the situation and be focused only on game situations.”
Pochettino’s assessment of the performance against a Turkey team ranked 27th by FIFA — 11 places below the U.S. — was echoed by midfielder Tyler Adams. The Bournemouth player came on as a halftime substitute for Johnny Cardoso, whose error allowed Real Madrid‘s Güler to level the scores.
“Yeah really exciting,” Adams told TNT. “I think for the first time probably in the past few camps we’re going to take a lot more positives away than negatives, so a good building block for a lot of those guys. A lot of them, it’s their first opposition from outside of Concacaf, which is good — good experience for a lot of them. The game is just a little bit different but they played excellent tonight.”
Added fellow midfielder Luca de la Torre: “The performance was good, the draw was more deserved.”
Pochettino stressed that the next two weeks will serve as much-needed Gold Cup preparation for an unfamiliar USMNT roster.
Veterans Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Antonee Robinson and Timothy Weah will not be joining the team for the Gold Cup, paving the way for players like Alex Freeman, Matt Freese and Diego Luna to earn international minutes under Pochettino.
“We knew that the level of the players are at different levels, that is why these two weeks are important to prepare for the Gold Cup. I think we want to win and compete really well in the Gold Cup. And it’s going to be tough, of course it’s going to be tough. But I think what we expect is what we saw,” Pochettino said.
“I think what I cannot complain about is that every single player was very connected with the team. Even the players that didn’t play, they were helping the team, the players that were playing, knowing that maybe they have the opportunity or the chance to play in the next one and they need also the help from the teammates that they are going to play. And that is why I think the impact of the whole team, I am so happy with that.”
The USMNT will face Switzerland on Tuesday at Geodis Park in Nashville, Tennessee, in the final friendly before kicking off the Gold Cup against Trinidad and Tobago on June 15. Pochettino’s side will later confront Haiti and Saudi Arabia in Group D in an attempt to qualify for the knockout stage.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.