by Weah sparks goal party
Tim Weah is one of the main reasons Mauricio Pochettino is head coach of the USMNT: the winger’s 18th-minute red card for hitting Panama defender Roderick Miller during the Copa América in June undoubtedly cost Gregg Berhalter his job.
After Weah’s dismissal, Folarin Balogun put the United States ahead, but the ten men conceded twice in what proved a crucial defeat that doomed Berhalter, who watched from the stands in St Louis on Monday as Weah catalyzed a terrific attacking performance from Pochettino’s side.
The United States beat Jamaica 4-2 on the night (5-2 on aggregate) to advance to the Concacaf Nations League semifinals in Los Angeles next March, adding another match of useful competition for the new manager as he looks to strengthen the team. team ahead of the 2026 World Cup. The victory also secured the United States’ qualification for the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup.
Weah’s callous and uncharacteristic foul last summer was a very visible emblem of the dysfunction creeping under Berhalter: losses of discipline, cohesion and creativity at different points in various matches, implying that the project had lost momentum. The Copa group stage exit provided tangible proof of this.
On Monday, however, positivity flowed as the United States compiled some inspired attacking combinations, with Weah, Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah and Antonee Robinson advancing into dangerous areas and providing the kind of verve and invention that has been rare without the often injured. playmaker, Gio Reyna.
Starting on the left side, Weah set the tone by firing a shot off the post in the fourth minute and scoring the fourth goal of the second half. In between, Christian Pulisic scored from a perfectly weighted cross from McKennie 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 precise angled finish. It was Weah’s first international appearance since his red card five months ago and it was clear he was determined to make up for lost time.
“It was an incredible performance,” Pulisic told TNT. “We should definitely feel good after these results. We are learning a lot of new things, obviously with the new coach some things have changed. And I think everything went well today and hopefully we can just continue to get better.
Benefits for Pochettino
A year after steering Chelsea to a 4-4 Premier League draw with Manchester City at Stamford Bridge, a stunning match voted the best of the Premier League season, it’s another four goals for Pochettino, even if the opponents were much less gifted. and the setting wasn’t as impressive: the second leg of a Nations League quarter-final in a small stadium with more than a few empty seats.
The 52-year-old’s first competitive victory as international boss came last Thursday in the 1-0 win at Kingston, an unedifying and very Concacaf evening on a pitch so heavy and bumpy it deserved to be traveled by quad. Two months into the role, Pochettino has won three of his first four matches, with the only defeat coming against Mexico last month with the team missing key members due to injuries.
It was by far the best performance of the four, although Pochettino has yet to coach Reyna, Tyler Adams, Sergino Dest and Balogun and he won’t see them in a competitive match against the United States until March at the earliest, when the Americans look to win. the Nations League for the fourth consecutive time. At least the absences allowed him to get a good look at fringe players such as Tanner Tessmann, who has been reliable, and Pepi, whose well-taken goals were his first for his country since October last year , giving Pochettino food for thought as to who his central striker will be when Balogun is fit again.
Captain America is Captain Maga
It was a historic night for Pulisic, who became the fastest player in USMNT history to contribute 50 goals or assists and the first to stage a goal celebration that copies the dance of a convicted criminal and a tried rapist.
Yes, it’s a silly dance. But much of the United States is in no mood to make pleasant references to Donald Trump’s return to the White House – the segments of the population who value democracy, civil rights, science and facts, For example. Nonetheless, after scoring, the talismanic American forward decided to participate in a craze that spans the NFL and UFC, popularized by a Trumpy San Francisco 49ers player who apparently didn’t get the memo on how athletes should stick to sports.
After McKennie and Pepi briefly joined in with Trump’s dance style, Pulisic was praised for his goal by Yunus Musah (born in New York to Ghanaian parents, a birthright recipient, a constitutional right Trump wants to end) . “This is not a political dance. It was just for fun,” Pulisic said, according to The Athletic. “I saw a lot of people doing it and I thought it was funny, so I enjoyed it,” he added: a position that is either fallacious or exceptionally naive.
Whatever his intention, the country’s best and most famous player is now a right-wing media hero hailed for owning the Liberals. He was the face of American soccer, however blithely, volunteering to participate in the culture wars and seeming to position himself on the opposite side of the political spectrum from many fans and the USWNT, whose advocacy drew ire of Trump.
Overall, it’s a left-field move from the Hershey-born 26-year-old, proving that Pennsylvania is a swing state but not a swing state. It would have been nice to enjoy an evening away from the divisive politics and simply appreciate a great performance under an exciting new coach whose salary is funded by (check notes)… a billionaire who recently made a $100 million donation to Republican causes.
Age is nothing but a number
Tim Ream is so anti-aging that a cosmetics company should hire him to be the face of their next ad campaign. But he is 37 and has captained all four of Pochettino’s games. A surprise selection for the 2022 World Cup roster, having been essentially sidelined by Berhalter during the qualifying campaign solely due to injuries to create an opening, Ream is now a mainstay of the defense even as he enters the thirty and swapped Fulham for Charlotte.
It’s a remarkable story of stamina and ability, but will he really be a starting center back in 2026? And if not, why isn’t Pochettino testing alternatives given the limited time he has before the tournament? The game was won at halftime on Monday, but Jamaica still made the U.S. backline squeak on several occasions and sloppy defending contributed to both of its goals. Central defender is the most problematic position on the team. Even as Ream continues to mature as Missouri’s answer to Thiago Silva, it’s unclear who his partner should be, with Mark McKenzie unconvincing against Jamaica.
Pochettino believes in equality
As a newcomer to American football, perhaps he was making an extra effort to be polite. It’s worth noting, however, that Pochettino, who spent his entire coaching career in Europe before taking charge of the United States, spoke about MLS on Sunday, saying that being part of the league was no barrier to selection. “For me, they will have the same opportunity to play in MLS [as] whether they played in the Premier League or La Liga or in Belgium, in France,” he told reporters.
Ten years ago, Jurgen Klinsmann’s clear words about MLS’s inferiority to Europe sparked a war of words with league commissioner Don Garber. He took offense to Klinsmann’s gloomy view of the MLS returns of Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley: high-profile public relations stunts made slightly less cutting by comments from the head coach of the national team. era that evoked the two dirtiest words in the MLS lexicon: r*ti*em*nt le*g*e.
Klinsmann argued that it is more difficult for top players to maintain high standards in lower level competition. But playing regularly against weaker opponents can build confidence and fitness and is surely preferable to sitting on the bench in Europe – as goalkeeper Matt Turner may conclude before long. Not overworked 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 grown significantly over the last decade, but the addition of eleven clubs since 2015 ( and another in 2025) made it possible to disperse talents.
The league could revive a stalled or declining career, but solid lifers such as Jesús Ferreira, Aaron Long and Walker Zimmerman have looked overmatched internationally against sharper opponents outside of Concacaf. It’s not about lacking physical attributes; it’s about not having the know-how that comes from working with the best in the world every day. As a coach, Berhalter didn’t have that experience either; at least Pochettino does.
Praising MLS is also pragmatic for Pochettino since the upcoming training camp, for the friendly against Venezuela in Florida on January 18 and another upcoming match, will include MLS players while the majority based in Europe will remain in its clubs. There is no point in discouraging participants.
And there’s a good chance that a significant minority of the 2026 World Cup team will come from MLS: two years ago, the list of 26 Qataris named by Berhalter contained nine such names. Pochettino has already selected players based in Scotland and the English second division: a sign of the limited depth of the talent pool. Regardless of the caliber of MLS, it will need it.
