Pochettino annoyed by perceived disappointment after US finishes group play with 3-2 loss to Turkiye

CALIFORNIA, USA: The United States only wanted to get through their final World Cup group stage match Thursday night without an injury or a red card, while Turkiye were playing for a face-saving victory to end a dismal tournament.
Both teams got what they wanted most out of their meaningless meeting before the Americans head on to the knockout stage — and coach Mauricio Pochettino was annoyed by any suggestion that the Americans’ last-gasp, 3-2 defeat said anything negative about the state of his team.
Kaan Ayhan scored on the final kick of the match to send Turkiye past the US in the eighth minute of stoppage time for their only win of the World Cup.
The result was meaningless to the Americans, who will meet Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Round of 32 on Wednesday. Pochettino sent out nine new starters, including eight who were starting a World Cup match for the first time.
The US tied it early in the second half on a goal by Sebastian Berhalter, and the Americans got within a few seconds of an unbeaten run through the group stage. But in his postgame news conference, Pochettino expressed his annoyance with what he perceived as disappointment in the result.
“For you not say congratulations that we won the group, that is a little bit sad,” Pochettino told reporters.
“What we need to remember is we won first place in this group,” Pochettino added while speaking in Spanish and English.

“We ended up being No. 1, and we managed all the pressure and the expectations quite well. We had other priorities.

We wanted to win. We did want the victory, but there are other things we needed to balance out, and that’s how I made the decisions. ...