The United States Men’s soccer team was defeated in a 2-1 loss to Canada Sunday at SoFi Stadium, and placed fourth in the Nations League, the championship tournament for the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football.
Tani Oluwaseyi opened the scoring for Canada 27 minutes into the match. The U.S.’s Patrick Agyemang tied the game eight minutes later. However, Jonathan David placed a shot in the back of the American net at 59 minutes.
The loss marked the first time the team has failed to win the gold medal since the tournament’s debut in 2020. Mexico won the title match against Panama Sunday to claim first place.
This was also the first time that the U.S. has lost back-to-back home games against Canada in more than 100 years of competition between the two countries.
U.S.-Canada sporting events, since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, have been treated as proxies for the political tensions between the two countries.
The result has drawn parallels in Canadian media to the National Hockey League’s 4 Nations Face-Off, in which the Canadian team prevailed over the U.S. in a tight final game. Canadian coach Jesse Marsch played a tape of Canadian and American players fighting in a preliminary game from that tournament in his locker room.
On the American side, the game prompted questions about the future direction of the national team. Defensive lapses and insufficient coordination allowed a team which was much weaker on paper to win.
"Now all we can do is be an example at our clubs and be the best that we can be there," Forward Christian Pulisic said in a post-game interview with CBS. "When we come back, some things need to change and we need to improve. We are going to look back at it but I don't have all the answers at the moment."