The United States had the first goal, the shot volume and a second-half equalizer. Türkiye had the last second touch.
Türkiye beat the USMNT 3-2 at SoFi Stadium on a 98th-minute winner from Kaan Ayhan, turning a frantic World Cup group-stage match into a preventable American defeat. Auston Trusty gave the United States a third-minute lead, but Arda Güler and Baris Alper Yilmaz scored before halftime to put Türkiye in front. Sebastian Berhalter leveled the match in the 49th minute, only for Ayhan to finish from close range deep into stoppage time.
The loss will sting because the United States B-team created enough to avoid it. The Americans finished with 18 shots, seven on target, nine corners and 52.5 percent possession. Türkiye had nine shots and only three on target. Every Turkish shot on frame became a goal.
That is the cleanest way to frame the night. The USMNT generated pressure and still left SoFi with nothing. It had already shown it could survive tournament stress in the win over Australia, but this was a different kind of test: a match it repeatedly had chances to steady, then lost in the final seconds.
Türkiye makes the moments count
The night started perfectly for the United States. Berhalter’s corner delivery helped create the opener, with Trusty finishing from a difficult angle on the right in the third minute. For a few minutes, the match looked like the kind of early-control performance the USMNT wanted.
Türkiye erased that quickly. Güler equalized in the 10th minute from Baris Alper Yilmaz’s assist, then Yilmaz scored himself in the 31st after Orkun Kökçü set him up from close range. In 21 minutes, Türkiye had turned one American set-piece goal into a halftime lead.
The United States responded after the break. Berhalter’s 49th-minute shot from outside the box made it 2-2 and gave the match a reset. From there, the Americans had enough possession, corners and pressure to think a winner was still available.
Instead, Türkiye found it. Ayhan’s stoppage-time finish came after the match had already stretched past the point where a draw seemed likely. It was close-range, late and ruthless, the type of goal that makes the previous 97 minutes feel different in hindsight.
The broader USMNT questions will not disappear. Mauricio Pochettino’s group had been built around more control and less chaos, a shift previously explored when the USMNT roster traded chaos for control. This match had both: long stretches of American pressure, and enough defensive disorder for Türkiye to punish every opening.
For Türkiye, the win was a statement of efficiency and nerve. For the United States, it was the kind of defeat that leaves numbers on one side and the result on the other. At a World Cup, only one of those survives the night. Now, how far can the USMNT actually go?
