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, the most important thing happened. He learns every day. It’s good.”
2. Edition Per Maximus Rival
Until losing games back to Mexico in 2024 and ’25, the US 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, although it was hardly a fault when he was under the US squad in the last, as they say, friendly in Guadalajara and 2025 Houston.
Mauricio Pochettino was leading the USA. (Photo by Robin Alam/ISI Photos/ISI Images via Getty Images)
Having beaten Peru and Chile in the last month, Pochettino warned on Friday that the variety and complexity of this unusually young squad would go through for the first time between the 2030 World Cup.
But the kids didn’t have a record, they grew up in the fight against Mexico and were captured and offered scor- ing cases. That is a sign of enormously encouraging progress.
“Mexico is a great team,” Pochettino said. “They forced us to play backwards. We never connected, we lost all the duels. And then after 15-20 minutes we started to grow.”
“We would have to adapt in different ways,” said US captain Tyler Adams. “Before half time we kind of rallied…I thought it was a complete team performance in a lot of diversity of the game. We had some challenges to defend. I think we defended all right for the most part, and then obviously we scored some good goals.”
It is possible that the 18-year-old Red Bull New York striker would not have been on Pochettino’s roster for Saturday’s match.
World Cup starter Folarin Balogun and one of the back-ups, Haji Wright, were not called up in this window. Hall almost did not play as well if Ricardo Pepi, who appeared in all five games during the American run to the 16th century, had not been injured after Pochettino on September 17.
Julian Hall keeps scoring. (Photo by Taylor Banner/USSF/Getty Images)
No matter. Hall has taken every opportunity given to him since making his senior international debut in last week’s 4-1 win over Peru, scoring the game shortly after entering the second half as a substitute and 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 between the four No. 16 ranked U.S. teams to play this window. And Hall once again rose to the challenge, taking a 1-0 lead following one of the only spells of extended possession the USA had in a first half in which El Tri had the ball more than 60 percent of the time.
“Three goals in three games is not bad for a striker, especially in the first three games in the national team,” said Gio Reyna, whose cross led to Hall’s tap-in. “He has that eye for the goal.”
Like most of the rest of the youngsters who handed Pochettino minutes this month, Hall will likely return to the U.S. under-20 national team or be bound for the 2018 Olympics U-23s, while more experienced players will inevitably be promoted back into the pool of players. But for a country that never seems to have enough pure metascorers, Poch and his staff are sure to have something to think about next month’s Concacaf Nations League quarter-finals.
“It’s a fantastic question for us,” the coach told me when I asked if the performances of Hall and other youngsters would change their plans.
Once in his strongest position by far, the US Devils have produced elite goalkeepers in years. But the 20-year-old Kochen is the country’s best retired prospect in years, and the fact that Poch started him in a hostile environment in Glendale says a lot about the potential of the Barcelona product.
That talent was evident in the 58th minute, when, clinging to the US lead 1-0 and knocking on Mexico’s door, he made the whole world stop. El Tri attacking Roberto Alvarado from the road to the 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. “I thank the Lord for giving me this faith.”
It remains to be seen if Kochen will keep his place in the development, stick with the older team in the studio, or if he, like the others, will return to the youth ranks. The competition, age, status and status of the American guard with the highest ceiling, don’t be surprised if he is the first.
4a. Is it next? Note Foe
The Americans have another turnaround following Saturday’s victory, with only two days between the Mexican match and another Tuesday game against Canada and its American coach, Jesse Marsch.
“We have Canada for three days,” said Reyna, the only US player to start all three games in this camp. “It’s the first time I’ve started three games in a week in probably four or five years, so I’m a little tired now. But I’ll be good for Canada.”
While the US holds the all-time series lead with a record of 17 wins to 12 losses (one with two draws), it has won once in the last six meetings between the teams, including the most recent in 2025. Can the Red, White and Blue snap another losing streak against Minnesota?