After a forgettable Nations League for the 2026 World Cup hosts, GOAL looks at tactics the U.S. must get right going forward

Oh, Mauricio, where do we go from here? Two losses. Vibes are low. Ex-players taking shots in the media. A Nations League crown ceded. Star players absent, both due to injury and disappearing acts on the pitch.

It's not looking good.

There is plenty of vitriol around the USMNT at the moment. These feel like the end times, just six months after the times really began. Everyone has an opinion, the fans are fuming. This was not the manager they were promised. And there's some degree of truth to all of those voices – albeit in different levels. Opinions can be silly, but not all of them are entirely wrong.

But before validating the rights and discarding the wrongs, before sifting through the mess and coming to any sort of concrete conclusions, it's worth looking into what actually happened on the football pitch in the USMNT's CONCACAF Nations League losses to Panama and Canada.

This was not just a question of no passion and therefore no result. Indeed, there were some tactical ideas attempted – some in glorious failure – but also plenty of lessons learned. Yes, new boss Mauricio Pochettino took few punches along the way. But he can also take a lot from these two games. There may be few answers. This is still a bedding-in phase, a new manager sort of figuring out what he's got – and perhaps finding out more about what he .

Either way, Pochettino tried some things. Many of them didn't work. GOAL takes a look at some of the tactical ideas that the still-sort-of-new U.S. manager tried to implement in their Nations League defeats.

GettyFinding the balance

Some things need to be established about Pochettino. International management is tricky, and it has become very clear, very quickly, that the man who won a lot at the club level can't quite run this whole thing like he would a Premier League side. This is not total control with every single base covered. Rather, it's a question of setting guidelines, a framework for his players to work around.

That makes sense. Not only because of the fact that time stipulates it – the 2026 World Cup is less than 450 days away – but also because this USMNT squad needs to be allowed to play off the cuff.

A look at the names here – Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Diego Luna, Tim Weah – shows a roster brimming with attacking talent at its best when allowed to bring their own personality into the equation around a rough idea. That means, though, that everyone else has to be staunchly disciplined, and the structure of the team has to be balanced perfectly.

AdvertisementAFPFailures in midfield combinations

It all starts in the midfield. The manager, roughly, played something like a 4-2-3-1 that turned into a 3-2-5 in possession. Most of the time, the "2" in the middle were relatively rigid – occupying similar spaces with and without the ball. This is nothing particularly novel. But it is crucial that those players are able to do a bit of everything – and meet certain criteria for certain matchups.

Against Panama, who were always going to sit in, it is vital that the two central midfielders are able to move the ball quickly, and then progress it forward at the right times. Theoretically, the players who are good in tight spaces can then receive the ball in pockets of space and create. Pulisic, in particular, is very good at this, something he proved in the USMNT's win over Jamaica back in November.

But against Panama, the two midfielders were Tanner Tessmann and Tyler Adams. Both are fine defensive players, experts at snuffing out counter-attacks. But neither is a particularly efficient nor vertical passer. Tessmann is in the 34th percentile among center midfielders in progressive passes – a metric outlining how many completed passes are sent up the pitch. Adams is in the 16th.

And neither midfielder bucked that trend against Panama. So much of their ball movement was sideways and languid. There were no changes in tempo or quick interchanges. Instead, Panama knew exactly what to expect, and nullified it every time – 338 of the U.S.'s 577 passes came in the Panamanian half, but they managed just 32 touches in the opposition box. The ball had to be moved quickly and it just wasn't.

Ironically, the duo that started against Canada – Adams and McKennie – was better suited for the Panama game. But on Sunday they were rather outfoxed by a clever Canada pressing structure and physically stronger midfield. Adams didn't have time to breathe on the ball, and completed 22 passes in 70 minutes of work. McKennie managed just 25.

Flip them around – with a steadier duo against Canada and more expressive against Panama – and things might have been different.

(C)Getty ImagesChristian Pulisic, where are you?

Pulisic has a problem when he plays for the USMNT. He is, by some distance, their best and most consistent player. The issue with being an undisputed star in this sport, though, is a shrewd opponent can – and will – mark you out of a game. It has been an occasional issue for Pulisic, who sometimes disappears in big moments. Against Panama, that's mostly because he wasn't used effectively.

There was no space in the middle of the pitch here – there was never going to be. An ideal scenario would have been to use him out on the left, get him the ball on the move, and trust in his ability to create cutting onto his right foot. Instead, Pochettino deployed the Milan man in the middle – used as a No. 10 of sorts.

And there, he toiled. It was a perfect storm of mishaps. Pulisic was either shoved around or marked out of the game altogether. He started the game staying high and looking for spaces. When they didn't appear, he dropped into deeper areas and demanded the ball – just to get involved.

Then came the panic and ensuing lack of impact. He completed four of 14 crosses and didn't put a single shot on target. In fairness, he did offer some interesting ideas, and was involved in the build up to the USMNT's best chance of the game, playing a key pass in a sweeping move that saw Josh Sargent hit the post.

Outside of that, though, it was a remarkably forgettable evening. He was better and more active against Canada, finding spaces and running at defenders. But at times he just did too much, running into traffic and overplaying rather than keeping it simple.

This is the Pulisic paradox. He is so often told to "be a leader" and seize the chances when they come. But more often than not, he is at his best playing with the kind of ferocity or passiveness that the game dictates. Against Canada, that pressure seemed to pile on, and he was remarkably ineffective as a result, completing just seven passes and failing to create a chance.

There will be other games. These were two pretty poor ones.

Getty ImagesNo room for Reyna?

The irony in all of this, of course, is that the USMNT have a potentially elite creator and dribbler in Gio Reyna. He certainly has his critics and injury woes, but even at half fitness, the attacking midfielder both thinks and acts at twice the speed of many of his teammates. A fit Reyna is a must start for Pochettino.

Still, the manager didn't seem to trust him very much. Reyna would have been the ideal replacement against Panama, his efficiency in tight spaces and eye for a killer pass theoretically invaluable against a shrewd defensive side.

Instead, the manager called upon the uninspiring Jack McGlynn, a fine tempo setter but not the creator the USMNT needed at the time. An attacking trio, in fact, of Pulisic, Reyna and Weah would seem to be the most balanced option.

But Reyna barely got a look. He managed 20 tepid second-half minutes against Canada, showing the occasional bright flick or tidy moment, but mostly struggling to find a foothold in a game that had long since lost its intensity.

His lack of time is puzzling. Pochettino admitted after the Panama game that Reyna was being saved for extra time. That would be a bewilderingly late change for someone who might have been able to change the game far earlier.