[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"header-nav":3,"footer-nav":29,"article-pochettino-rotates-usa-lineup-turkey-world-cup-group-finale":82,"category-counts-nav":98,"related-pochettino-rotates-usa-lineup-turkey-world-cup-group-finale":108},[4,8,11,14,17,20,23,26],{"label":5,"to":6,"exact":7},"Home","\u002F",true,{"label":9,"to":10},"World Cup","\u002Fworldcup",{"label":12,"to":13},"Standings","\u002Fstandings",{"label":15,"to":16},"Football","\u002Fcategory\u002Ffootball",{"label":18,"to":19},"Basketball","\u002Fcategory\u002Fbasketball",{"label":21,"to":22},"Tennis","\u002Fcategory\u002Ftennis",{"label":24,"to":25},"F1","\u002Fcategory\u002Ff1",{"label":27,"to":28},"Long Reads","\u002Fcategory\u002Flong-reads",{"brand":30,"columns":32,"tagline":80,"copyright":81},{"description":31},"In-depth sports journalism covering football, basketball, tennis, F1, and beyond. Daily analysis, long reads, and expert opinion.",[33,51,59],{"heading":34,"links":35},"Leagues",[36,39,42,45,48],{"label":37,"to":38},"Premier League","\u002Ftag\u002Fpremier-league",{"label":40,"to":41},"La Liga","\u002Ftag\u002Fla-liga",{"label":43,"to":44},"NBA","\u002Ftag\u002Fnba",{"label":46,"to":47},"Formula 1","\u002Ftag\u002Fformula-1",{"label":49,"to":50},"Champions League","\u002Ftag\u002Fchampions-league",{"heading":52,"links":53},"Content",[54,56,57],{"label":55,"to":16},"Analysis",{"label":27,"to":28},{"label":58,"to":16},"Data & Stats",{"heading":60,"links":61},"Company",[62,65,68,71,74,77],{"label":63,"to":64},"Terms of Service","\u002Fservice",{"label":66,"to":67},"Privacy Policy","\u002Fprivacy",{"label":69,"to":70},"Editorial Policy","\u002Feditorial",{"label":72,"to":73},"Contact Us","\u002Fcontact",{"label":75,"to":76},"About Us","\u002Fabout",{"label":78,"to":79},"Website Disclaimer","\u002Fdisclaimer","Built for the love of sport","© SportPulse. All rights reserved.",{"title":83,"slug":84,"category":85,"badge":86,"author":87,"excerpt":88,"date":89,"readTime":90,"image":91,"imageAlt":83,"tags":92,"body":96,"_path":97},"Pochettino's Luxury: USA Rest Stars as Turkey Fight for Survival","pochettino-rotates-usa-lineup-turkey-world-cup-group-finale","football","Match Report","James Chen","With group winners USA rotating heavily, Pochettino trusts depth over dominance in a dead-rubber finale against desperate Turkey.","2026-06-26 01:17:40","6 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fi.guim.co.uk\u002Fimg\u002Fmedia\u002Fbdd9af6293ad0ca39b7f875ee3e90215646ae520\u002F500_0_5000_4000\u002Fmaster\u002F5000.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=8fe26b9e8afb93788276cb6879916a1f",[93,94,95],"World Cup 2026","USMNT","Turkey","## The Freedom to Experiment\n\nWhen you've already locked up the group, every lineup decision becomes a statement. Mauricio Pochettino's team sheet for USA's final Group D outing against Turkey at SoFi Stadium reads less like a matchday squad and more like a tactical thesis. **Christian Pulisic is absent entirely.** Weston McKennie wears the captain's armband. Ricardo Pepi, who stepped in when Pulisic went down against Australia, leads the line again. Only **two players** survive from the Australia XI. That tells you everything about where Pochettino's head is at.\n\nThe atmosphere inside the stadium is loud, celebratory, and distinctly relaxed. American fans have turned up knowing their team is already through as **group winners**. The tension that normally crackles through a World Cup group finale? Gone. What's left is a home crowd treating this like a victory lap, and a manager treating it like a preseason friendly with competitive stakes for the opposition.\n\nTurkey, meanwhile, could not afford to share that sentiment—and ultimately, they made it count.\n\n## What Turkey Were Up Against\n\nFor the Crescent-Stars, this was existential football. Their World Cup hopes hinged on getting a result against a rotated but still dangerous American squad. The math for third-place permutations made every goal, every point, every yellow card accumulation detail matter. Turkey's players would be fighting for their tournament lives while Pochettino fielded what amounted to a B-plus side.\n\nThat asymmetry created a fascinating tactical dynamic. Would Turkey press aggressively against unfamiliar opponents and risk being caught on the counter by players desperate to prove themselves? Or would they sit back, absorb, and try to nick a goal against a lineup that may lack cohesion?\n\nHistory suggests rotated sides in dead rubbers can go either way. Think back to **2018**, when Belgium fielded a second-string lineup against England in the group stage and won **1-0** anyway, because fringe players carry the hunger that established stars sometimes lack. Pochettino's reserves viewed this as a **90-minute audition** for the knockout rounds. But tonight, Turkey had the final say.\n\n### The Pepi Question\n\nRicardo Pepi's continued selection was the most telling detail. The young striker was a **Pulisic replacement** against Australia, a stopgap necessity. Now, with Pulisic rested (or potentially managing a knock that the coaching staff are managing carefully), Pepi got another start. Whether this was load management for the AC Milan forward or a genuine fitness concern remains unclear, but the implication is significant: Pochettino trusted Pepi enough to give him extended minutes in a World Cup match, regardless of context.\n\nPepi's international record heading into this tournament showed **12 goals in 28 appearances** for the USMNT. His movement is sharp, his finishing has matured since his early FC Dallas days, and his holdup play has quietly improved under Pochettino's system. A strong performance here could have cemented his place in the rotation for the knockout rounds, where depth will matter enormously.\n\n## Pochettino's Master Plan\n\nThis is what good tournament management looks like—until it isn't. The USMNT's **Group D campaign** had gone precisely to script, and Pochettino leveraged that success to:\n\n- **Rest key assets** for the Round of 32, where the real tournament begins\n- **Build depth** by giving fringe players competitive minutes under World Cup pressure\n- **Test tactical wrinkles** he might deploy later, when preparation time between matches shrinks\n- **Manage fitness** across a squad that will need to peak in the knockout rounds, not the group stage\n\nThe Argentine manager knows better than most that World Cups are won in the second and third weeks, not the first. His PSG tenure taught him the cost of burning out stars in early rounds. His Tottenham run to the **2019 Champions League final** showed what's possible when you manage a squad intelligently through a long campaign.\n\nBut rotation carries risk, and tonight that risk materialized in the cruelest fashion.\n\n> \"The group stage is the appetizer. You don't fill up on bread before the main course arrives.\"\n\n### What McKennie's Armband Means\n\nGiving Weston McKennie the captaincy is more than ceremonial. McKennie has been the **heartbeat of this USMNT cycle** since the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where he started all four matches. His versatility, his willingness to cover every blade of grass, and his vocal leadership make him Pochettino's on-pitch extension. With Pulisic and potentially other senior players rested, McKennie became the bridge between the regular starters and the reserves. His presence ensured the tactical template stayed intact even as **10 new faces** slotted in around him.\n\nAt **27 years old**, McKennie is in the prime window for a midfielder. His Serie A experience with Juventus has given him a tactical discipline that complements his natural athleticism. Pochettino needs him on the pitch not just for tonight, but as the player who holds the midfield structure when the first-choice XI returns for knockout football.\n\n## The Los Angeles Factor\n\nThere's something poetic about the USMNT playing a dead-rubber group match in Los Angeles, the city that will host the **2028 Olympics** and has become the de facto capital of American soccer's commercial ambitions. SoFi Stadium was packed because World Cup tickets in the United States carry a cultural weight beyond the sport itself. Families, casual fans, and die-hards filled the seats for what was, objectively, the least consequential match of the group stage for the hosts.\n\nBut that's the beauty of hosting. Every match becomes an event. Every appearance in front of **70,000-plus fans** builds the momentum that Pochettino will need when the knockout rounds arrive and the pressure multiplies exponentially.\n\n## Verdict\n\nThis match mattered far more to Turkey than it did to the United States, and both teams knew it. Pochettino's rotation was pragmatic, smart, and a luxury afforded only to teams that have done their job in the first two group matches. Turkey fought with everything they had. The US fringe players fought to prove they belong. And in the last minute of an end-to-end battle, Turkey came out on top with a **3-2** victory that sends them out of the World Cup on a high.\n\nTwice the USA were pegged back, and twice they fought their way back level. But the last-gasp goal ensured Turkey's World Cup ends not with a whimper but with a moment of pure, desperate glory—the kind of finish that only the World Cup can manufacture.\n\n## What's Next\n\nThe knockout bracket awaits. As **group winners**, the USMNT will face a **third-place qualifier** from another group in the Round of 32, a favorable draw that rewards their early dominance. The question is whether Pulisic's absence tonight is precautionary or symptomatic of something more concerning. If the AC Milan star is fit and firing for the knockout rounds, Pochettino's rotation gambit will still look masterful. But the last-gasp loss exposes the thin margin between confidence and complacency. Tonight, a second-string US side learned that lesson the hard way.\n\nTurkey, whatever happens next in the tournament for others, will look back on this night in Los Angeles as a signature moment. Their young core has talent. Their federation has invested. And on a night when they fought for survival, they produced a result that rewards fighting spirit above all else.\n\n**Verdict:** Pochettino played chess while Turkey played for their lives—and in the last minute, Turkey won.\n\n> *Updated: 2026-06-26 — Updated with final match result: Turkey defeated USA 3-2 with a last-gasp winner.*","\u002Farticles\u002Fpochettino-rotates-usa-lineup-turkey-world-cup-group-finale",[99,100,101,102,85,103,104,105,106,107],"analysis","basketball","cricket","f1","general","golf","mma","long-reads","tennis",[109,122,134],{"id":110,"stem":110,"path":111,"title":112,"category":85,"badge":113,"badgeType":114,"author":115,"authorRole":116,"authorInitials":117,"date":118,"readTime":90,"image":119,"imageAlt":112,"tags":120,"excerpt":121},"sheffield-wednesday-callum-slattery-midfield-signing","\u002Farticles\u002Fsheffield-wednesday-callum-slattery-midfield-signing","Slattery Arrives: Sheffield Wednesday's Midfield Reinforcement and What It Signals","Transfers","tag","Elena Rossi","SportPulse Contributor","ER","2026-07-02 00:41:33","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F2374\u002Flive\u002Fad5e5940-73c1-11f1-aaa1-3f07d3ad2c35.jpg","Championship, Scottish Premiership","Sheffield Wednesday add free-agent midfielder Callum Slattery from Motherwell, targeting Championship depth and technical quality in central areas.",{"id":123,"stem":123,"path":124,"title":125,"category":85,"badge":86,"badgeType":114,"author":126,"authorRole":127,"authorInitials":128,"date":129,"readTime":130,"image":131,"imageAlt":125,"tags":132,"excerpt":133},"salt-welsh-fire-southern-brave-southampton","\u002Farticles\u002Fsalt-welsh-fire-southern-brave-southampton","Salt's Unbeaten 47 Grounds Welsh Fire in Southampton Slog","Sarah Martinez","Transfer Correspondent","SM","2026-07-22 21:31:41","1 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F5e40\u002Flive\u002F09805c20-860d-11f1-926f-c90d1bcfbc84.jpg","The Hundred","Phil Salt carried his bat through a low-scoring chase, exposing Southern Brave's fragile middle order in the process.",{"id":135,"stem":135,"path":136,"title":137,"category":85,"badge":138,"badgeType":139,"author":87,"authorRole":140,"authorInitials":141,"date":142,"readTime":90,"image":143,"imageAlt":137,"tags":144,"excerpt":145},"vinicius-junior-brazil-world-cup-hero-arrival","\u002Farticles\u002Fvinicius-junior-brazil-world-cup-hero-arrival","Vinícius Júnior Has Finally Arrived for Brazil","Feature","category","Senior Football Analyst","JC","2026-06-29 09:00:47","https:\u002F\u002Fi.guim.co.uk\u002Fimg\u002Fmedia\u002F0598ca884a428519bd14f0d05a30d822f1cfb134\u002F798_280_3499_2799\u002Fmaster\u002F3499.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=d60ddc1c4094c0f132dfd2c862ea2bea","World Cup,  La Liga,  Champions League","After years of club dominance and international frustration, Vinícius Júnior is delivering the heroics Brazil has desperately needed."]