STATE FARM STADIUM (Glendale, Ariz.) — The U.S. men’s soccer team trounced Mexico, its fiercest rival and FIFA’s No. 10 ranked nation, 3-0 in Saturday’s exhibition match here in front of a heavily pro El Tri crowd of more than 60,000 at the home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals.
Eighteen-year-old forward Julian Hall scored for the third straight game, 17-year-old Cavan Sullivan added the second and Malik Tillman rounded out the scoring with just a few minutes remaining.
Here are my takeaways, plus post-game reaction from U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino and his players.
Last weekend against Peru, Cavan Sullivan became the second-youngest player to start in U.S. men’s national team history.
On Saturday, he notched an even more impressive milestone when he pounced on an errant pass by Jose Rangel and chipped the Mexico keeper to give the Americans a dos-a-cero lead — the youngest goalscorer in the 113-year history of the program.
“He’s a talented player with enormous quality, but with a very good balance in possession and out of possession,” Pochettino said. “He’s a fighter. He’s a warrior. It’s difficult to find this type of player.
“Happy for him, happy for the team,” the coach added. “I like what he said [on TNT’s broadcast] after the game, that the most important thing was the result. He’s learning every day. That is a good thing.”
2. Statement Over Biggest Rival
Until losing back-to-back games to Mexico in 2024 and ’25, the U.S. had dominated its southern neighbor this decade, beating El Tri in three straight Concacaf Nations League Finals and the Gold Cup final in 2021. The pendulum swung back after Pochettino took over as coach, though that was hardly his fault, with an understrength U.S. squad falling in a so-called friendly in Guadalajara and in the 2025 Gold Cup final in Houston.
Mauricio Pochettino leading the USA. (Photo by Robin Alam/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)
After beating the Peruvians and Chile decisively late last month, Pochettino cautioned on Friday that there would be downs as well as ups for this unusually young roster, the first one of the 2030 World Cup cycle.
But the kids didn’t get the memo, growing into the match against Mexico and taking the scoring chances they were presented with. That’s a hugely encouraging sign going forward.
“Mexico is a great team,” Pochettino said. “They forced us to play backwards. We never connected, we were losing all the duels. And then we started to grow after 15-20 minutes.”
“We had to adapt in different ways,” U.S. captain Tyler Adams said. “At halftime we kind of regrouped…I thought it was a complete team performance in a lot of different facets of the game. We had some challenges to defend. I think we defended all right for most of the part, and then obviously scored some good goals.”
It’s possible that the 18-year-old Red Bull New York striker wouldn’t even have been on Pochettino’s roster for Saturday’s contest.
World Cup starter Folarin Balogun and one of his backups, Haji Wright, were not called in this window. Hall might not have played nearly as much if Ricardo Pepi, who appeared in all five games during the Americans’ run to the round of 16, hadn’t gotten hurt after Pochettino named his roster back on Sept. 17.
Julian Hall keeps scoring. (Photo by Taylor Banner/USSF/Getty Images)
No matter. Hall has taken every opportunity he’s been given since making his senior international debut in last week’s 4-1 win over Peru, scoring it that game shortly after entering as a second half substitute and then finding the net again in his first start, a 4-2 victory against Chile.
Those goals were enough for Poch to keep the Manhattan-born Hall in his lineup for Saturday’s showdown with Mexico, the highest-profile match among the four the No. 16-ranked U.S. team will play this window. And Hall rose to the challenge again, giving the home team a 1-0 lead following one of the only extended spells of possession the USA had during a first half in which El Tri had the ball for more than 60 percent of the time.
“I mean, three goals in three games is not bad for a striker, especially in your first three games in the national team,” said Gio Reyna, whose cross led to Hall’s tap-in. “He sort of has that eye for goal.”
Like most of the rest of the youngsters who Pochettino handed minutes to this month, Hall will probably return to either the U.S. under-20 national team or the 2028 Olympics-bound U-23s when the more experienced forwards in the player pool inevitably return. But for a country that never seems to have enough pure goalscorers, he’s definitely given Poch and his staff something to think about ahead of next month’s Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals.
“It’s a fantastic problem for us,” the coach told me when I asked if the performances of Hall and the other youngsters might alter thier plans.
Once its strongest position by far, the U.S. has had a devil of a time producing elite goalkeepers in recent years. But the 20-year-old Kochen is the country’s best backstop prospect in years, and the fact that Poch started him in a hostile environment in Glendale says plenty about the Barcelona product’s potential.
That talent was on full display in the 58th minute when, with the U.S. clinging to a 1-0 lead and Mexico knocking on the door, he made an all-world stop on El Tri attacker Roberto Alvarado on the way to a clean sheet:
“It’s one of the greatest moments of my entire life,” a beaming Kochen told me about an hour after the final whistle blew. “I’m super thankful that the coach trusted me with this.”
It remains to be seen if Kochen will keep his place going forward, stick with the senior team in an understudy role, or if he, like others, will return to the youth ranks. Given his competition, his age, and his status as the American keeper with the highest ceiling, don’t be surprised if it’s the first one.
4 1/2. Next Up? A Familiar Foe
The Americans have another quick turnaround following Saturday’s victory, with just two days between the Mexican match and another rivalry game on Tuesday against Canada and its American coach, Jesse Marsch.
“We have Canada in three days,” said Reyna, the only U.S. player to start all three games during this camp. “First time I started three games in the week in probably four or five years, so I’m a little bit tired now. But I’ll be good for Canada.”
While the U.S. holds the all-time series lead with a record of 17 wins to 12 losses (along with two draws), it has won just once in the last six meetings between the teams, including the most recent in 2025. Can the Red, White and Blue break another streak of futility against another neighbor in Minnesota?
This story originally appeared on Fox Sports
