It was a dream sequence, like a scene cribbed from a Hollywood sports flick.
Deep into second-half injury time at a huge, gleaming World Cup stadium, with a chance at a continental trophy on the line, the player drilled a clinical low finish inside the far post to snatch a stunning late triumph for his side and advance them to the tournament final. Overcome with emotion, the striker – a 33-year-old journeyman who hadn’t scored a goal at club level for months – leaped over the advertising boards and raced to the dais behind the goal where the broadcast commentary crew sat, among them the great Thierry Henry.
“You are my idol! You are my idol!” cried the goalscoring hero to the retired Arsenal, FC Barcelona and New York Red Bulls legend, then embraced him in a delirious, sweaty hug. A bit later the player happily handed over his jersey to Henry on live television in exchange for the promise of receiving one of the French icon’s in return via air mail.
It was an unforgettable moment at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the sort that many members of the US men’s national team have probably envisioned at one point or another in their lives, especially now that they know they’ll be playing two of their 2026 FIFA World Cup matches at the awe-inspiring venue.
But it wasn’t a USMNTer scoring that goal on Thursday night, it was one of their opponents – the one that’s now crushed their hopes of success in three tournaments over the past two years, in fact. Cecilio Waterman, not Christian Pulisic or Weston McKennie or Patrick Agyemang, had produced the last-minute magic to push Panama into the Concacaf Nations League final with a 1-0 win, thereby ending the Yanks’ run of three consecutive CNL titles, ensuring that another nation’s name will grace the hardware for the first time since its launch in 2019.
USMNT bogeyman strikes again
Yet again, Panama’s dream was the USMNT’s nightmare, just like their jaw-dropping upset in last summer’s Copa América, a shock result that brought Gregg Berhalter’s tenure as head coach to an abrupt, ugly halt. And much like that game, as well as their penalty-kick shootout win in the 2023 Gold Cup semifinal, Los Canaleros massed 10 men behind the ball, closed down space tenaciously, got stuck in with venom and dared the Yanks to break them down.
And it worked.
“One shot on target, one goal,” lamented US veteran and Charlotte FC defender Tim Ream of Panama’s successful approach in a postgame interview. His side enjoyed twice as much ball possession as their opponent (67%-33%), completed 645 passes, earned nine corner kicks and took 12 shots, five of them on target, all for naught.
“We tried and tried and tried and obviously didn't get our own goal,” Ream continued. “They sat back and we struggled to break them down and get in behind and get a lot of clear chances. We still had enough to win the game, but they're a tough opponent when they sit everybody behind the ball … and for us, we didn’t find a way to break it down.”
Major setback for Pochettino
Head coach Mauricio Pochettino will have to wait a while longer for his first championship in US colors, and ponder some uncomfortable questions about the direction of the USMNT program in the meantime. Afterwards the Argentine coach pondered whether his team had been outhustled, whether the underdogs wanted this one just a bit more, or been taken just a bit too lightly by the defending champs.
“We are USA, but you cannot win with your shirt,” Pochettino told reporters, lamenting a tentative US first-half performance which was “really painful to see” given the stakes. “You need to come here and be better and suffer and win the duels and work hard. If not, it’s not going to be enough.
“They were hungry for every ball like it was the last one,” he said of Panama’s intensity. “You could feel the difference on the field.”
Questions will also be asked about Pochettino’s approach, too. Was this the best time to try a mostly new and unproven formation tweak, fielding a three-man backline with Tim Weah and Yunus Musah as hybrid wingbacks? Should he have brought on a pure playmaker like Gio Reyna or Diego Luna to break down Panama’s rugged 5-4-1 shape? Did goalkeeper Matt Turner’s paucity of playing time at Crystal Palace contribute to a rusty reaction to Waterman’s shot?
“We struggled a little bit in the first half to understand what the press was going to be. They [Panama] came out and switched it a little bit,” said Ream, whose preponderance of touches on the ball hinted at his side's inability to penetrate Panama's organization. “And that's on us to understand what we need to do. And we work on it during the week. Unfortunately, we didn't adjust quickly enough in the first half. Second half, obviously, is a little bit better pressure, pressuring them more to give the ball away.
“But again, at the end of the day, they have one shot, one goal, and we're not playing for a final.”
Most urgently: With barely a year to go until the World Cup on home soil, can this USMNT project find its footing again? They'll begin with Sunday's third-place match at SoFi vs. Canada, then pivot to June friendlies vs. Türkiye and Switzerland before the Gold Cup, their final competitive event before next year’s big event.
