The numbers keep mounting and the questions keep growing louder. The United States men’s national team closed out their March international window at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Tuesday night with a 2-0 defeat to Portugal, their eighth consecutive loss against European opposition, their second straight defeat in the space of four days, and the latest chapter in a Christian Pulisic scoring drought that is now stretching into genuinely troubling territory. Francisco Trincão scored in the 37th minute and João Félix added a precise half-volley in the 59th, and for all the crowd noise, for all the 72,297 spectators who filled the stadium on a warm Georgia evening, the scoreline reflected a gap in class that Mauricio Pochettino will be spending the next two months trying to close before the World Cup begins.
None of this is a catastrophe. These are friendlies against one of the genuinely elite teams in world football — a Portugal side that, even without the injured Cristiano Ronaldo and without Bernardo Silva who was not part of the March window squad, still carried the kind of technical quality that most national teams simply cannot replicate. Roberto Martínez’s squad contains Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha, Pedro Neto, Diogo Dalot, Gonçalo Ramos and a bench that could walk into the starting line-up of the vast majority of nations on the planet. Losing to them 2-0 is not the same as losing to a side the USA expect to beat. But the manner of it — the inability to capitalise on early pressure, the defensive switching off from set pieces, the Pulisic problem that refuses to go away — will have Pochettino sitting at his laptop deep into the night reviewing footage and reconsidering choices.
The World Cup roster must be submitted on May 26. The announcement will be made at an event in New York. Then there are two more warm-up friendlies — against Senegal on May 31 in Charlotte and Germany on June 6 in Chicago — before Group D opens on June 12 with the United States against Paraguay in Inglewood, California. That is the only timetable that matters now. There is no more room for experimentation after this. What was learned on Tuesday night is what gets taken into those conversations and what shapes the decisions Pochettino makes about his final twenty-six.
The USMNT started the evening with six changes from the side that had been beaten 5-2 by Belgium on Saturday — a result that had itself prompted some hard conversations. Matt Freese was back in goal, recovering his starting role from Matt Turner who had played against Belgium. Alex Freeman and Auston Trusty came into the defence. Sebastian Berhalter and Aidan Morris took positions in midfield. And the most significant structural change: Pulisic was moved from the wing into a central role at the top of Pochettino’s formation, the coach explaining in his pre-match comments that the idea was to give his struggling star forward more opportunities to get close to goal, to give him what he needed to finally break a drought that had been building across eight international matches stretching back to November 2024.
The early signs were reasonably encouraging. The USA came out with urgency and made Portugal work from the opening whistle. Weston McKennie was typically combative and drove forward wherever the opportunity arose. Pulisic had an early effort cleared and the USMNT finished the first half with eight shots compared to Portugal’s three — a shot count that tells one story while concealing another, because the quality of those attempts was uneven and Freese himself was called upon early, diving to his right to deny Gonçalo Ramos in what turned out to be one of the better saves of the match. For all the first-half possession and shot volume, the United States created very little that could genuinely be described as a clear chance. The xG figures at full time told the same story with clinical precision: 0.68 for the US against 0.74 for Portugal. The Americans had more shots but their shots were less dangerous, less clean, less likely to trouble any goalkeeper.
Portugal were patient. That is what genuinely elite sides can do that other teams cannot — wait, absorb, and then turn one moment of quality into a goal. It came in the 37th minute. McKennie, under pressure, knocked a pass from Freeman toward Vitinha in a dangerous midfield area. Vitinha took it forward and fed Bruno Fernandes, with Chris Richards and Auston Trusty both converging on the Portuguese captain trying to force him away from goal. Fernandes, in that pressed space, had the composure and the vision to do something most footballers in that position cannot — he dropped a backheel pass into the path of Trincão arriving from the right. Trincão took one touch and slotted it with his left foot inside Freese’s far post, low and precise, from about ten yards out. The goal came directly from a turnover in a dangerous area, the kind of mistake that European sides at this level do not forgive and that the United States have been making with too much consistency across this window.
Pulisic, who had been booked in first-half stoppage time after a tussle with Tomás Araújo, was hauled off at the interval. It was his eighth straight international match without a goal. Pochettino, who had started the game with the express purpose of helping Pulisic find his form, had seen enough in forty-five minutes and made the switch. Patrick Agyemang, Tanner Tessmann, and Max Arfsten all came on at the same time alongside Pulisic’s replacement. Portugal, for their part, made seven changes at halftime — an extraordinary rotation that reflected Martínez’s desire to give game time to the widest possible group ahead of the tournament and keep everyone sharp.
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The second goal came in the 59th minute and was, if anything, even more avoidable than the first. Portugal won a corner kick. Bruno Fernandes stood over it and delivered the ball with his left foot from the corner flag, curling it toward the edge of the penalty area on the opposite side — the far post area that every defensive unit in modern football is supposed to have assigned and covered. João Félix, who had come on as a second-half substitute, found himself completely unmarked just outside the eighteen-yard box while every American defender stood inside it dealing with the crowd of bodies in the six-yard area. Félix took one touch to control the corner delivery, then hit it on the half-volley with the laces of his right boot — a firm, bouncing strike that came off the far post on two bounces before rolling into the net. Freese was frustrated, visibly and audibly, as the ball crossed the line. It was the kind of set-piece defensive organisation failure that has haunted this team intermittently for years and that, at the World Cup level, will be punished by any team with the technical quality to exploit it.
Once two goals behind, the USMNT kept trying but never really threatened a comeback. Brenden Aaronson came on and worked hard on the left. The US finished the match with twelve shots overall. They managed three on target. Their xG of 0.68 against a team this good is not embarrassing, but it is not enough and they are not going to score against Paraguay, Australia, or Turkey in Group D from 0.06 xG per shot, which was broadly what this window produced. The attacking efficiency issue is real. Pulisic’s drought is real. And the two things are not unrelated — when your most dangerous player cannot find the net and cannot replicate at international level what he does periodically at club level, everything around him suffers.
The Pulisic situation deserves an honest accounting rather than panic or dismissal. He has ten goals for AC Milan this season, a solid return by most standards. But he has not scored for them since December 28, and his last international goal came in November 2024. That is a four-month plus club drought and a more than sixteen-month international drought. Pochettino tried him wide, tried him central, gave him the license to arrive late into positions, set up attacks around his movement. None of it, so far, has worked. He had chances Tuesday night. The best of them came in the first half when he fired from outside the area and a Portuguese defender made the clearance that kept the scoresheet blank. But the finishing, the clinical decision-making in the final moment, has been absent for months.
There are mitigating factors worth noting. Freese was excellent for stretches and his performances across this window have strengthened his case to be the number one at the tournament. Chris Richards, returning from injury, was steady and composed in the defensive line and reminded everyone why he was missed when unavailable. McKennie brought energy and goalscoring intent that his club form at Juventus has evidenced this season. Malik Tillman showed the kind of technical ability and movement that gives Portugal’s defence problems and deserves to be part of the World Cup group.
The broader context for Pochettino is that back-to-back defeats to Belgium and Portugal — both World Cup contenders — are tough results but not necessarily damning ones. These are among the best teams in the world. The margin of defeat in both cases, 5-2 and 2-0, is more concerning than the defeats themselves, because they suggest systemic vulnerabilities that opponents at the tournament will identify and target. Senegal on May 31 and Germany on June 6 will offer different kinds of tests, and there is still time for the pieces to come together.
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Portugal, for their part, head home satisfied. Without Ronaldo, without Bernardo Silva, they still had too much for the United States. Fernandes was the conductor throughout — his backheel assist for the first goal was the moment of the match, the kind of instinctive, precise pass that separates the very best players from the merely good. Trincão took his chance cleanly. Félix, coming off the bench, struck the kind of technically beautiful half-volley that reminds you why he was once considered one of the most exciting young talents in European football. Martínez rotated heavily and still won comfortably. His side’s next assignment is the World Cup opener against DR Congo on June 17.
Final score: USA 0-2 Portugal. Francisco Trincão 37′ (assist Bruno Fernandes backheel), João Félix 59′ (assist Bruno Fernandes corner). Referee: Sven Jablonski (Germany). Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta. Attendance: 72,297. Possession: USA 38.4%, Portugal 61.6%. Shots on goal: 3-5. Shot attempts: 12-11. Corners: 2-8. Yellow cards: Joao Cancelo 34′ (Portugal), Christian Pulisic 45+3′ (USA). Saves: 3-3.
