USMNT stunned by Türkiye in stoppage time, loses perfect run

Kaan Ayhan’s goal in the eighth minute of stoppage time gave Türkiye a 3-2 win over the United States at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and snapped the Americans’ perfect run through Group D. The final touch came after a frantic match that flipped back and forth from the opening minutes, with the U.S. starting a heavily rotated lineup and Christian Pulisic left out of the starting XI before entering as a substitute.

Auston Trusty put the United States ahead early, Arda Güler answered for Türkiye, and Barış Alper Yılmaz pushed Türkiye in front before halftime. Sebastian Berhalter pulled the U.S. level in the second half with a long-range strike, setting up a finish that turned on one final sequence deep into stoppage time. ESPN’s scoring timeline listed the goals at the 3rd, 10th, 31st, 49th and 90+8 minutes, a pattern that underscored how little margin the Americans had once the game opened up.

The loss carried no immediate bracket damage, because the United States had already clinched first place in Group D before kickoff, but it did change the tone around the team heading into the knockout round. The U.S. had entered the match at 2-0-0 after beating Paraguay 4-1 on June 12 and Australia 2-0 on June 19, and the defeat denied the Americans a chance at their first 3-0 group stage at a World Cup. That made the late collapse more than a single bad finish: it became a test case for whether Mauricio Pochettino’s squad can close out matches once the margins tighten.

Pochettino’s rotation also put the spotlight on depth and on how much the side still leans on Pulisic as a difference-maker off the bench. Türkiye, meanwhile, got its only victory of the 2026 World Cup group stage and its first goal of the tournament on its 63rd attempt after failing to score in 62 tries across its first two matches. Güler’s strike was his first World Cup goal, and the match drew a Hollywood-heavy crowd that included Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.

The United States now turns to the knockout round, with its next match set for July 1, 2026, at the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium. In a 48-team World Cup spread across 104 matches in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the Americans still advanced with control of Group D, but the stop-start finish against Türkiye left sharper questions than a perfect record would have.