The Panama Game was a major test for this USMNT generation – and they failed

We’ll come back to the match against Panama in a moment, but first think back to December 2022.

The United States men’s national team had just been knocked out of the World Cup by the Netherlands, losing 3-1 in the round of 16. A nation was searching for answers: Why couldn’t Gregg Berhalter’s side get the job done?

“If you look at the difference between the two teams, as far as I’m concerned there’s a bit of an attacking finishing quality that we’re missing,” Berhalter said of the second-youngest team of the 32 in that tournament. “That’s normal. We have a very young group and they are going to catch up.”

Ah, youth. There’s nothing more exciting in football than the concept of potential; the promise that no matter how good a player or team is, you’re just waiting for them to find their sea legs. With experience should come the intangibles that complete an athletic skill set. These are often the qualities that transform a good player into a great one: an erudite reading of the game or an unearthly ability to predict the opponent’s next move, to name a few.

Still, it can be a disappointing silver lining to fixate on after a team is knocked out of a World Cup. They only come around once every four years and, what’s more, there’s no guarantee that any player, let alone a collective of them, will have any squeaky-clean national team spots as younger prospects rise through the ranks.

At some point, a person or a team must demonstrate that the proverbial “learning moments” from previous setbacks have resonated and will lead to better decisions.

Which brings us to Thursday night in Atlanta.

For fifteen minutes, the USMNT was up for the challenge. Panama represents the type of opponent that Berhalter’s team would welcome in these circumstances. In this all-Americas edition of the Copa America, ostensibly the CONMEBOL (South American) Championship, you would think it would be better to face a CONCACAF rival you regularly play against than one from a completely different confederation.

After the final whistle, when his team had suffered a 2–1 defeat, Berhalter and his players repeatedly cited their familiarity with Panama. They knew Panama was a team that would play with chippiness on every play. They knew what Panama was about and knew what approach they would take in hopes of shocking the tournament hosts.

It begs the question: if you knew where the opponent would be are fall, why did you end up getting caught in a trap of your own creation?

(Eliecer Aizprua Banfield/Jam Media/Getty Images)

Since taking over in 2018, one of the hallmarks of Berhalter’s USMNT tenure has been his ability to thwart, overcome and ultimately run laps with Mexico. For decades, these two teams have fought for supremacy in the CONCACAF balance of power. As countries such as Costa Rica and Canada experienced strong development this century, their success was contextualized in relation to the region’s twin powers.

The framing does a disservice to the rest of CONCACAF, a kind of football classism that builds on past pedigree and fame surrounding a country’s best players. The nature of a group draw, where each team gets its next three opponents, inevitably fixates on the perceived ‘toughest’ opponent in the three matches, regardless of their place in the queue. So if you’re focused on a match against Marcelo Bielsa’s high-flying Uruguay at the end of the group, you risk overlooking the teams you’re less afraid of.

Teams like Panama.

Even after watching the climax of Tim Weah’s 18th minute red card a dozen times (or maybe special After watching it so many times, it’s hard to fathom his decision-making. Before and after the game, the United States stressed that they knew Panama would use the dark arts to wrestle control of the game.

Tim Weah receives a red card after assessment for this contact 🟥 pic.twitter.com/phw8bSzdKR

— FOX Football (@FOXSoccer) June 27, 2024

Tim Weah gets red! 😱

The player from the United States gets a red card for violent behavior 🟥

Big moment in this match… pic.twitter.com/WEmV5B9DKt

— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) June 27, 2024

The point is that this was not such a case. It was not a reaction to a scything tackle or a sharp elbow behind the referee’s back. It was retaliation for an otherwise unremarkable off-ball bump between a defender ready for a challenge and an eager attacker. That this was the sequence of events that allowed Panama to play with a man advantage for more than 70 minutes? It undermines the claim that it “knew” what to expect.

Well, maybe that’s unfair. You know what’s coming and you plan for it. This last part is more important.

(Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

To be fair, the gamesmanship the United States claimed to expect did indeed materialize.

The main example was Cesar Blackman’s 12th-minute foul, where the Panama player crashed into a defenseless Matt Turner in the air without making a serious nod to the ball. Goalkeeper Turner suffered a knee injury, which may have limited his mobility as Blackman fired the equalizer into the net just 14 minutes later.

Of course, Blackman escaped the collision without seeing a yellow card, but that’s another story.

In a cruel twist, the player who looked set to bring the ‘attacking finishing quality’ that Berhalter craved in 2022 did his bit. Even after Weah’s red card and before Blackman’s goal, Folarin Balogun opened the scoring with the kind of effort that only a special striker could confidently convert.

(Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

The USMNT fought valiantly in the second half after Berhalter made a trio of adjustments, replacing Turner with a new goalkeeper, withdrawing a midfielder to add another defender, and rotating defensive midfielders to ensure stability. In theory, a 1-1 draw would have done wonders for the hosts, putting them on four points and Panama on one with a game in hand.

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In the end, Panama’s extensive possession (74%, or 72% if you only include the ball touches in each attacking third) gave them enough time to turn one point into three. As Christian Pulisic put it succinctly after the match: “it’s not that easy to keep the ball” when you play with one man less. Panama created its best chance of the match in the 80th minute and did not waste it.

Weah’s teammates and coach were quick to say the Juventus man was contrite after the match, saying he had apologized for his action and the disadvantage it caused. It looks like he’ll soon get another chance (be it in the knockouts or after this tournament) to put things right – as others of this generation including Gio Reyna, Weston McKennie and Sergino Dest have done after their own incidents on and off the field. .

For now, however, the damage has been done. Weah’s ill-advised move gave Panama an advantage it may not have needed, but which it certainly enjoyed. Tyler Adams called Weah’s foul a “lesson” to think about for the future. Pulisic assured us that Weah will “learn from it”.

Haven’t we heard this before? Given how infrequently the USMNT can schedule friendlies against teams outside of CONCACAF, is there any excuse left for not having some level of mastery over the intricacies of playing against rivals within your confederation?

How can a team expect to outwit Uruguay, or Brazil, or Colombia in a potential quarter-final – not to mention the wider field at a World Cup – if it often falls victim to the opponents it knows best?

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(Top photo: Hector Vivas/Getty Images)