- Donovan not surprised by loss to South Korea
- Concerned about results against quality teams
- Optimism is waning ahead of 2026 World Cup
Landon Donovan provided a stark assessment of the United States men’s national team’s performance under Mauricio Pochettino in their 2-0 loss to South Korea on Saturday night.
The former U.S. star acknowledged he wasn’t shocked by the result, considering a pattern of underwhelming performances since Pochettino took charge. The USMNT lost four straight games before the Gold Cup. They then won five straight, before losing to Mexico in the tournament final.
“Disappointing for sure, not surprised,” Donovan said in a post on Unfiltered Soccer. “The high-level takeaways are, that’s now six losses in the last eleven games, and one of those five wins was a tie against Costa Rica that we won on penalties. So it’s not good. Not optimistic at this point.
“Some very interesting decisions, lineup decisions… but overall just not making us feel great, unfortunately, about what’s coming next summer. There’s still opportunities to change that around. I think one really good performance against Japan could start to lift the belief again, but it wasn’t a great day.”
Since Pochettino took charge in September 2024, the USMNT has struggled to establish consistency in both results and performances, raising concerns about their readiness to compete on home soil next summer. They’ve played 17 games under the Argentine, winning nine.
The USMNT face Japan in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday.
