The USMNT resting players against Mexico was disrespectful to the rivalry

United States

Updated Oct. 17, 2024 2:27 p.m. ET

The U.S. men’s national team 2-0 loss to Mexico on Tuesday was not good any way you slice it. This wasn’t just a bad result — it was a bad performance.

There’s very, very little to look at and say “that was good” or “you can build on that.” This U.S. team down in Guadalajara against, what has to be said, a Mexico team that is not even close to the Mexico teams of the past. And yet, it was Men vs. Boys. It was a complete annihilation of the United States from start to finish. I’m hard-pressed to find anybody that can hold their head high after this, including Mauricio Pochettino.

This is our greatest rival; this is an important rivalry; this is an important game.

If we cannot afford to waste opportunities to play given the fact that we’re just a year and a half away from the World Cup and have very few windows. Yes, Pochettino is getting to know this team, but he’s not going to have to qualify this team, so there are going to be very, very few opportunities that we have to be in a competitive environment and an environment that is difficult and challenging like this one was.

This one hurts. It’s embarrassing, against Mexico, to go out and play like that. It’s embarrassing, yes, to lose, but especially to lose in the way that we lost.

In the two games in this window — Panama at home and Mexico away — this game was the going to be the true test, with all due respect to Panama. And yet we went down there with, what has to be said, a B or C-type of team. That’s disrespectful to the rivalry and it’s ultimately embarrassing.

Pochettino: Go try to manage the load of crap that that was. You sent players home and, in doing so, you made it very clear where your priorities were.

Before this game, I said that, in a strange way, this is kind of smart and sly from Pochettino because there is a built-in excuse: If he had won, it would have been incredible — he went down there with his B-team and was able to beat Mexico, but if he lost, he was missing his players.

Load management can kiss my ass.

— Alexi Lalas

If Pochettino was the coach of Argentina, which we know is something that he wants to do, and Argentina was playing a game against Brazil, would he have acted in the same way? Would he have sent players back? Would he have taken his foot off of the gas? Would he have taken a B/C-team to play against Brazil? Of course not.

In that, there is disrespect.

Load management can kiss my ass.

It should hurt you as a player. You should want to be on that field to play Mexico. Whether it’s Guadalajara, Los Angeles, Columbus or on the freaking moon, you should want to move heaven and earth to be involved in a game, as a U.S. men’s national team player, against El Tri — anywhere, anytime, bring it! Even if it’s one leg, I don’t care; you should want to be involved.

And if you don’t want to be involved — if you just brush it off — there’s something wrong; there’s something wrong with you and with the program.

Alexi Lalas is a soccer analyst for FOX Sports and host of “Alexi Lalas’ State of the Union Podcast.” He represented the USMNT at the 1994 FIFA World Cup and had a nine-year professional career. In 2006, he became the president of the LA Galaxy and helped bring David Beckham to Major League Soccer.