Heung-min Son was the star of the show as the United States men’s national team fell 2-0 to South Korea on Saturday, continuing the Americans’ underwhelming form under the Argentine coach. With a goal and an assist, Son took advantage of a USMNT defense, including a debutant in Tristan Blackmon, and Sergino Dest making his first national team appearance since November of 2023. With the clock ticking down to the World Cup, USA coach Mauricio Pochettino has plenty of questions that his team needs to answer after not generating nearly enough in attack.
Even with this being a match where he wanted to get a better look at an experimental roster, they weren’t able to come close to troubling a South Korea side who are the 23rd-ranked team in the world. Add that in with falling in the Gold Cup and Concacaf Nations League, and this is a team that’s off the pace of where they should be. This isn’t foreign territory as the USMNT also struggled ahead of the 2022 World Cup before making it to the round of 16, but that doesn’t make it any less worrisome as time to tinker is running out. With a match facing Japan coming on Tuesday, they’ll need to have short memories from this loss to create some sort of much-needed momentum.
This is now the fifth consecutive loss that the USMNT have suffered versus a FIFA top 25 team, and in that time, they’ve been outscored 11-1. Their last victory in a match of that nature came at the 2022 World Cup over Iran under Gregg Berhalter.
That’s a stat that shows how little has changed in the last four years for this team. Already qualified for the expanded World Cup as one of the hosts, the USMNT are still strong enough to advance out of the group stage, but depending on who they potentially draw in the newly created round of 32, their journey could end right there. With the World Cup being on home soil, that won’t be a strong enough result after bringing in Pochettino.
Expectations within the team are high, and this wasn’t the full squad that would likely make it to the World Cup with players such as Malik Tillman, Antonee Robinson, and Weston McKennie absent, but even with those players, the USMNT haven’t been able to defeat teams of this caliber. Facing Japan, there will be another chance at gaining a signature win to ease worries, while the October international break will see the USMNT face Paraguay and Uruguay. The clock is ticking.