The U.S. men’s national team is out of the Gold Cup one game earlier than planned, and there seems to be a race to take the blame.
Panama ended the USMNT’s run, surviving a six-round penalty tiebreaker after a 1-1 extra time draw. That was widely seen as a fair result: Panama gave the U.S. immense trouble in the early going, and saw multiple good looks in a more even second half denied by close calls from referee Walter López or strong saves from Matt Turner.
Still, an early Gold Cup exit is rare for the USMNT, who had made the last three tournament finals and entered this edition as defending champions.
Plenty of players indicated that they felt like the loss was on their shoulders. Despite Panama’s goal coming after a badly executed offside trap, Turner told TUDN that Iván Anderson’s strike was his responsibility. Jesús Ferreira, who scored the team’s dramatic equalizer but then missed his penalty in the shootout, looked positively dejected as the team trudged off the pitch at Snapdragon Stadium.
However, if you ask interim coach B.J. Callaghan, the problems all started with an experimental lineup that resulted in a draining first half. While Panama gained confidence, the USMNT had to chase on legs that were already heavy after going to extra time against Canada in the quarterfinals.
“The first half is my fault. I didn’t set the team up the way they should have been set up,” Callaghan — whose future is unclear as Gregg Berhalter returns to the USMNT helm in the coming days — told reporters after the match.
Callaghan opted for a 4-3-3 to start the match, which is not out of the ordinary for the USMNT, but an attempt to start both Ferreira and Brandon Vazquez backfired. Rather than using a high press to create while its two top goal threats were both on the field, the USMNT struggled as Panama pulled their shape apart repeatedly. Aside from Cade Cowell’s shot off the post in the first seconds of the match, los Canaleros were fully in charge as the teams headed off at the break.
Callaghan: ‘I take responsibility’
“We tried to remain [true] to our identity,” explained Callaghan. “We want to go out and press. I thought Panama, they’re a really well-coached team, they’re really experienced, they’ve been together for a long time. They were able to cause us challenges, and obviously in the wide areas, it was difficult for us to get to those long diagonals in the first half. [We] expended a lot of energy. I take responsibility and accountability for that.”
At halftime, Callaghan rang the changes: the 4-3-3 was exchanged for a 4-2-3-1, with Ferreira playing underneath Vazquez, Cowell switching to the right wing, and Djordje Mihailovic moving from a central role to play out on the left. With more true width, the USMNT had an easier time containing Panama’s wingbacks while keeping numbers around influential Houston Dynamo midfielder Adalberto Carrasquilla.
“We were just able to make a small adjustment defensively to get some more cover into the wide areas,” said Callaghan. “I thought the guys executed that great, put in another great shift. I thought in the second half [we were] able to control the game a little bit more.”
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