The United States Men’s National Team fell 2-1 to Panama in a bad loss that puts the USMNT in a precarious position in Group C of the 2024 Copa America.
Coach Gregg Berhalter fielded an unchanged lineup, highlighted with Folarin Balogun up at striker. The team actually started with a bright moment. Christian Pulisic put in a free kick from the right side and found Chris Richards. Richards however could only put it towards the Panama keeper, who put it off the post. It fell down, with Tim Ream able to poke it towards Weston McKennie, who buried it. However, the ref determined that Ream was actually offsides on the play, forcing the goal to be overturned.
While that McKennie’s moment of marksmanship wound up being erased, there were a pair of moments shortly later that proved pivotal. First, Matt Turner got absolutely decked by Cesar Blackman, going down hard on his right shoulder. The referee refused to book Blackman for the dangerous challenge and Turner wound up struggling for the rest of the half. Shortly after play resumed, Tim Weah found himself short on patience after a prolonged moment of harassment from Roderick Miller and gave him a push, with Miller crumpling to the ground dramatically. The ref initially game Weah a yellow card but, after Video Review (VAR), the ref saw that Weah hit Miller in the back of the head and upgraded it to a straight red. Weah was sent off and the USMNT now had to play down a man for the rest of the match, nearly 75 minutes. And of course, those moments proved decisive.
But the initial reaction of the USMNT offered a massive moment of hope. Antonee Robinson and Balogun played a neat little one-two in the box before Balogun smashed home an absolutely gorgeous curling goal off the inside of the far post to put the US up 1-0 in the 22nd minute.
However, the lead proved fleeting. Just 4 minutes later, Cesar Blackman got to the top of the US’s box and, with Antonee Robinson unable to clear the ball, he put a low shot in through traffic and managed to squeeze it in next to the post. 1-1.
From there, the match continued, ugly, physical, with Panama increasingly making use of their man advantage. More and more of the game was played in and around the US box, with the US defenders clearly disorganized, but without many more particularly threatening moments from Panama. Actually, the last memorable attacking moment of the half belonged to the US, with Balogun attacking down the right and hitting the bar.
The second half brought a flurry of changes from Gregg Berhalter. Tyler Adams was pulled out and replaced with Johnny Cardoso in a straight swap. Cameron Carter-Vickers came on for Gio Reyna, shifting the US defense to a back five. And, perhaps most notably, Ethan Horvath replaced the ailing Matt Turner.
Horvath found himself with aquite a lot to do, with a save within 5 minutes for a shot too hot to handle, but right at him. There proved to be a number of such moments through out the half like that. But the first big moment of real stress for the USMNT came when a Panamanian attacker went down in the box with Carter-Vickers sliding in. The ref did not hesitate, penalty.
Except the highlights showed that Carter Vickers didn’t touch his man; the attacker took a dive. To the relief of the Americans, VAR came in and corrected the call. And the moment of relief seemed to pay off when Balogun got on the ball in the box after Robinson did well to take it way up the field. However, the angle proved too difficult and Balogun couldn’t put it on target. That proved to be the end of the night for Balogun, with Ricardo Pepi coming on immediately after. And, unfortunately, the team felt that change. The USMNT did have other chances. Ricardo Pepi in particular managed to put yet another shot directly at the goalkeeper in the short time he was on the field. However, it was mostly a defensive outing at that point. And, unfortunately, that defense cracked.
In the waning minutes of the half, Panama got a bit of space on the left side, with Robinson forced to run to-and-fro, and caught out of position when a pass was made to Panama’s striker, José Fajardo inside the box, who made no mistake. 2-1 Panama. And that proved decisive. The US certainly tried at that point, bringing on Josh Sargent for Tim Ream. And there seemed like a moment of possibility when Pulisic was maliciously hacked down by Adalberto Carasquilla in the 88th minute, drawing an immediate and obvious red card. But it proved too much and the USMNT was too spent. They managed a Weston McKennie header that went over the bar and that was about it.
This loss puts the US in a nasty position. The win over Bolivia meant that the US most certainly will have a fighting chance to advance. However, with a game over arguable group favorites Uruguay coming up on July 1st, the US certainly have a tough task ahead. The actual scale of the problem depends on how the Uruguay v. Bolivia match plays out (not finished at time of writing), but, assuming Uruguay win, the US will be in second, tied with Panama for the last spot to advance to the knockout rounds and ahead only on goal difference. If Uruguay wins v. Bolivia, the US will need to win outright on Monday, or else depend on the result of the Panama v. Bolivia game.
