No moral victories for USA vs. Mexico: ‘The goal is to win’ the Gold Cup

HOUSTON — There are two ways to look at this version of the U.S. men’s national team ahead of Sunday’s Concacaf Gold Cup finale against blood rival Mexico (coverage begins at 6 p.m. PT on FOX and the FOX Sports app).

On the one hand, this shorthanded squad that is missing as many as eight players likely to be in coach Mauricio Pochettino’s starting lineup when the USMNT opens the 2026 World Cup in Los Angeles next summer, has already overachieved. When the regional championship began on June 13, few thought they’d seriously contend for the title. El Tri remains the bookies’ favorite. 

A huge crowd filled mostly with El Tri supporters is expected to fill 72,000-seat NRG Stadium. The U.S. is playing with house money. For them, the tournament has already been a success.

That’s not how Pochettino and his team see it at all.

“We need to find a way to win,” the former Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham manager said on the eve of Sunday’s decider. “What is going to be in the memory of the people is who will win tomorrow. Who is second, no one is going to remember.

“Getting to the final of the Gold Cup was the objective,” Pochettino continued. “The next step is to win. That is the most important thing.”

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It makes sense that the Argentine isn’t one for moral victories. After Christian Pulisic and most of the other regulars lost both matches at March’s Concacaf Nations League finals, Pochettino assembled an MLS-heavy group this summer, sprinkling in first-choice midfielder Tyler Adams and defenders Tim Ream and Chris Richards plus rising stars like Diego Luna and Malik Tillman and charging them with restoring the fight that has been missing all too often since the 2022 World Cup.

The team responded by going 3-0 in the group stage, then outlasted Costa Rica and Guatemala to reach Sunday’s final. Mexico will pose their toughest test yet.

“We’ve proved that we can surprise people, but at the end of the day, the goal is to win,” said goalkeeper Matt Freese, who has started in place of incumbent Matt Turner this summer. “We haven’t proved what we want to prove yet, and so the job’s not finished.”

Competing it won’t be easy. Mexico won the Nations League under new/old coach Javier Aguirre. They’re led by Fulham striker Raul Jimenez, arguably the top striker in Concacaf along with Canada’s Jonathan David.

“Raul Jimenez is a baller,” said Richards, who regularly faces him in the Premier League.

And as they do whenever they play north of the Rio Grande, Mexico will pack the house – this time, the home of the NFL’s Houston Texans – and turn the cavernous indoor arena into a sea of green shirts.

Add it all up, and it’s a perfect dress rehearsal for next summer’s World Cup.

“It’s good for us,” Pochettino said. “It’s going to be maybe the last game that we’re going to play under pressure. And to play under pressure is what  the team needs.

“We already were qualified for the World Cup” [as co-hosts], Pochettino added. “The games that we are going to play after are going to be friendly games, so it’s important that we have a difficult scenario to feel the pressure, to feel the stress. Because the World Cup is going to be about feeling the pressure and the stress.”

The World Cup will also be about winning. While capturing the title next summer is almost certainly beyond them, hope for a deep run in 2026 remains. Beating Mexico on Sunday would increase that optimism considerably among U.S. fans.

Why can’t they do it? After all, there’s a precedent there.  Four years ago, another patchwork USMNT upset a nearly full-strength El Tri in the 2021 Gold Cup final. It was a sign of how things would shake out at the main event. The U.S. used the momentum to reach the round of 16 at the 2022 World Cup the following year. Mexico, meantime, crashed out in the group stage in Qatar, failing to advance to the round of 16 for the first time in decades.

Still, Sunday will mark an unfamiliar experience for many of the younger Americans, most of whom have never participated in a U.S.-Mexico match.

 “I’m super excited to go out there and play in a game that I’ve dreamt of since I was a little kid,” said Luna, who along with Tillman has scored three goals so far, good for second in the Gold Cup Golden Boot race. “Being a Mexican-American, it’s in my blood.”

The opportunity isn’t lost on the older heads, either. Just ask the 37-year-old Ream, a Premier League and World Cup veteran.

“I’ve been in this program for 15 years. It’s my fourth Gold Cup. I’ve not won one yet,” Ream said. “Are we underdogs? Maybe. Does it matter? No. It’s one game to lift a trophy. That’s all the motivation we need.”

How they pull it off doesn’t matter, either. The beautiful game, this probably won’t be. This will be a dogfight from beginning to end if history is any guide. That’s just fine with this U.S. squad.

“We kind of like the fight,” Richards said. “That’s something that maybe has been missing from the national team over the last few camps, few months, few years.”

Sunday provides the chance to show they can stand toe-to-toe with Mexico on the biggest stage this region has to offer.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect, doesn’t have to be pretty,” Freese said. “The goal is to win, plain and simple.”

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports who has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.

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