Auston Trusty gave the USA the perfect start, finishing inside three minutes, but Türkiye answered almost immediately: Arda Güler leveled it on 10', and Orkun Kökçü's strike on 31' had the Turks ahead by the half-hour mark. Tanner Berhalter dragged the Americans level again four minutes after the restart, and for the best part of forty minutes it looked like 2-2 would hold and send the USA into the round of 32 with a point to spare on top of the group. Instead, in the eighth minute of stoppage time, Kaan Ayhan won a scramble at the back post and buried it — a gut-punch winner that overshadowed the fact the USA still topped Group D regardless of the result.
Mauricio Pochettino's reaction afterward leaned more frustrated than relieved. "At the moment, no one congratulated us for finishing first in our group," he said pointedly. Pressed further, he added: "Maybe I am not showing (it) because your questions are a little bit weird, but I am so happy, and the players are happy because I think we perform, we compete, and we are first." Asked to assess the team's trajectory: "We are a much better team now than before." And on the bigger picture entering the knockouts: "We qualified as number one, and we went to the next round. I need to remind you that we won the group."
🛋️ The Couch predicted Türkiye 1-2 USA — Güler scores the opener, Pulisic equalizes, Balogun gets the winner. Half credit on Güler finding the net early, but everything else came apart: it was Berhalter, not Pulisic, who leveled it for the Americans, and there was no Balogun winner — there was an Ayhan winner, for Türkiye, in the eighth minute of added time. The Couch correctly called the USA topping the group, but predicted them doing it with three points instead of zero. Wrong process, somehow the right conclusion.
Already through as group winners no matter the scoreline, the Americans still let a stoppage-time set piece undo eighty-nine minutes of decent work. Topping the group with a loss is still topping the group, but it's not the way Pochettino wanted the message sent into the knockouts.
A side that has spent the tournament living dangerously got the spectacular ending its run deserved, snatching three points in the eighth minute of stoppage time to finish the group on equal footing, pending tonight's Paraguay-Australia result.
His pointed post-match comments suggest a manager who feels his team's group-stage performance is being undersold by a result that, on paper, reads as a defeat.
| Team | P | W | D | L | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸 USA | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | +4 | 6 |
| 🇦🇺 Australia | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 🇹🇷 Türkiye | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -2 | 3 |
| 🇵🇾 Paraguay | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 3 |
USA's loss doesn't cost them top spot — their +4 goal difference and 6 points are unreachable by the rest of the group with one match each remaining. Türkiye's stoppage-time win moves them level on 3 points with Australia and Paraguay, who kick off simultaneously later today in a match that decides second and third place.