USMNT heads to the final: Who will they play for Gold Cup glory?
An early brace for Diego Luna was enough to see off a spirited Guatemala team that beat Canada in the quarter-final.
The United States men’s national team are through to the Gold Cup final, easing the pressure on head coach Mauricio Pochettino ahead of next summer’s World Cup.
The USMNT beat Guatemala 2-1 on Wednesday evening thanks to a first-half brace from young star Diego Luna. The Real Salt Lake forward struck twice in the opening stages, the second a stunning individual effort fired past Kenderson Navarro from distance.
The Guatemalans had already pulled off the shock of the tournament by beating Canada in the previous round and they made life difficult for the US when Olger Escobar halved the deficit with ten minutes remaining.
However the USMNT were able to hold on and book their place in Sunday’s final, where they will take on the winner of Mexico and Honduras.
USMNT came into the 2025 Gold Cup off the back of a run of four consecutive defeats, sparking concern of another embarrassment on home soil. But a much-changed, MLS-heavy squad has managed to navigate the tournament well and now stands just 90 minutes away from silverware.
Pochettino has been hampered by the unavailability of a number of key players, the Europe-based stars that have been heralded as a new ‘Golden Generation’. Team talisman Christian Pulisic is absent as he rests from the 2024/25 domestic season, while Weston McKennie, Tim Weah and Gio Reyna all traveled to the Club World Cup.
In their place, Pochettino has given opportunities to lesser-known players from MLS and they have largely performed well. Luna has been the stand-out, but striker Patrick Agyemang has impressed and Matt Freese looks like a genuine solution to the USMNT’s goalkeeping conundrum
There is still a lot of work to be done to turn this disjointed US team into a side capable of progressing at next summer’s World Cup. But there is evidence that there are alternatives beyond the big-name stars, players that Pochettino could now choose to give serious playing time to.
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