Pulisic’s Brace Powers USMNT to 6-0 Rout of Haiti as Pochettino’s Farewell Begins in Style

The United States began life after the World Cup, and the farewell tour of Mauricio Pochettino, with the most emphatic statement available to a football team: six goals, none conceded, and a tie settled before the second leg has even been played. The Americans beat Haiti 6-0 in Miami on Saturday in the first leg of their CONCACAF Nations League quarter-final, according to the Associated Press, producing the biggest win and the most goals of Pochettino’s two years in charge of the national team.

Christian Pulisic scored twice in less than two minutes of the second half, according to the Associated Press, and in doing so moved past Eric Wynalda into fourth place on the United States’ all-time scoring list with 35 international goals. Auston Trusty, 18-year-old Julian Hall, Weston McKennie and Folarin Balogun scored the other four, as the United States turned a 1-0 half-time lead into a rout with five goals after the break.

The result all but settles the tie before Tuesday’s second leg in Cincinnati, which will be Pochettino’s final match as United States head coach before he takes over at Manchester United on 18 November. Haiti would need to score seven goals in Cincinnati to overturn the deficit, and the Americans, who have not lost to Haiti since 1973, will arrive there with a place in the Nations League finals in March effectively secured.

It was, by every measure available, a near-perfect evening for a team and a coach parting company in circumstances neither side expected a few months ago. Pochettino signed a new contract with U.S. Soccer in August that was supposed to carry him through the 2030 World Cup. Three months later he is leaving for Old Trafford, and the players who will not follow him responded the only way that mattered: by playing, in Trusty’s words, for him.

Five goals in 30 minutes turn a contest into a rout

The match was played at Nu Stadium in Miami, the home of Inter Miami, because Haiti cannot play international football at home. Violence in the Caribbean country has prevented Les Grenadiers from staging matches on home soil, according to the Associated Press, so the Haitian federation asked for its home leg to be played in the United States. South Florida, home to the largest Haitian diaspora community in the United States, supplied the setting, and the crowd, according to the Associated Press, was mostly pro-Haiti, with fans draped in the country’s blue and red colours cheering a team that had returned to the World Cup this summer for the first time in 52 years.

For the first 45 minutes, the occasion held. Trusty gave the United States the lead in the 10th minute, heading home, and the Americans went into the break a goal ahead. The second half was a different match entirely. Hall, the 18-year-old who had been the breakout star of the September and October international windows, scored in the 52nd minute to make it 2-0. Then Pulisic took over.

The AC Milan forward was tripped in the penalty area after receiving a clever backheel pass from Hall, according to the Associated Press, and converted the penalty himself in the 62nd minute for a 3-0 lead. Less than two minutes later he finished from outside the box on an assist from Alex Freeman, and the score was 4-0. McKennie added a fifth in the 68th minute with a header from a set piece, and Balogun completed the scoring in the 82nd minute, finishing past goalkeeper Alexandre Pierre and then pointing at his wrist in celebration.

The numbers behind the scoreline were as one-sided as the score itself. According to Sports Illustrated, the United States scored six goals from nine attempts on target, wasting just one of the six clear chances they created. It was the most goals the Americans had scored in a match under Pochettino, and their largest margin of victory since the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup, when they beat Trinidad and Tobago by the same 6-0 score.

Haiti had one moment of joy, and it did not count. In the 70th minute Lenny Joseph appeared to put Haiti on the board, finishing a cross from Josue Casimir, and the crowd roared as if their team had taken the lead. Joseph was ruled offside, according to the Associated Press, and the goal was disallowed. It was the closest Haiti came to scoring, and the roar that greeted the disallowed goal said as much about the night as the six that stood: this was a crowd that had come to celebrate its own team, and found itself watching the other one.

Pulisic’s night in the record books

The evening belonged, above all, to Christian Pulisic, and the statistics of his performance tell a story of return as much as of scoring. His two goals were his first for the national team since 31 May, according to the New York Post, and his first two-goal game for the United States in three and a half years. They were also his first goals since the injury that ended his World Cup.

Pulisic missed the United States’ four exhibition wins over Peru, Chile, Mexico and Canada in the autumn as he worked his way back from a microfracture of his right tibia and fibula, according to the Associated Press. He sustained the injury in the 4-1 defeat to Belgium in the round of 16 at the World Cup, the match that ended the Americans’ home tournament. His return to the starting line-up on Saturday, alongside McKennie and Balogun, restored the spine of the team that had carried the United States through the summer, and the difference was visible within an hour.

The second goal, a left-footed strike from outside the box into the low left corner, was his 35th international goal, according to the Associated Press. It moved him past Eric Wynalda, who scored 34, into fourth place on the United States’ all-time scoring list. Only three players in the history of the national team have now scored more goals than Pulisic, and at 28, with a World Cup cycle ahead of him, the rest of the list is plainly within his reach.

That is the context that makes the brace more than a footnote to a rout. Pulisic has been, for most of the last decade, the player American soccer measures itself by: the first American to become a regular at a club of AC Milan’s stature, the captain of the national team, the player whose fitness has so often determined how far the team can go. The World Cup was supposed to be his tournament, played on home soil, and it ended with a fracture and a 4-1 defeat. His first competitive match back produced two goals in two minutes and a place in the record books. It is a small sample, one match against overmatched opposition, but it is the best possible answer to the question of whether the player who left the World Cup on a stretcher is back.

Sports Illustrated, rating the performance, gave Pulisic a 9.2 out of 10 and called him the best player on the pitch, noting that after a slow start he became a constant threat, with electrifying runs, clever through balls, a well-taken penalty and a sensational strike to complete his brace. The same report noted that criticism of Pulisic had been loud after what it described as an underwhelming World Cup, and that on Saturday he silenced it emphatically.

The returns around him mattered just as much

Pulisic was not the only returning player to make the night his own. Balogun, who scored the sixth goal, was playing his first significant match for the United States since a World Cup that ended for him in controversy. The Monaco striker’s red-card suspension at the tournament was controversially suspended after a phone call from United States President Donald Trump to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, according to the Associated Press, and he was then omitted from the autumn friendlies when he did not play in Monaco’s first four Ligue 1 matches of the season after a possible transfer to Everton fell through.

His celebration after the goal was deliberate. Balogun pointed at his wrist, a nod to the basketball player Damian Lillard, who makes the same gesture to signal that it is “Dame Time” after hitting a decisive shot. “I just wanted to show it’s my time,” Balogun said afterwards, according to the Associated Press. “I’m back.” It was the shortest possible summary of a player who had spent the autumn watching from the outside, and it was delivered in the language of a man who intends to be central to whatever comes next.

McKennie, the Juventus midfielder, also returned to the starting line-up after missing the most recent international window, according to Sports Illustrated, and scored the fifth goal with a header from a set piece. Malik Tillman, who set up two of the goals, was the night’s other quiet architect: the two assists, according to NBC Sports, came from a player who has grown into one of the team’s most reliable creators.

And then there was Hall. The 18-year-old scored the goal that broke the match open, two minutes into the second half, and supplied the backheel pass that won the penalty for Pulisic’s first goal. He had been the breakout star of the autumn windows, when the established players were absent, and on Saturday he showed that his emergence was not a product of their absence. He played like a player who belongs in the team on merit, not on promise, and at 18, with the 2030 World Cup four years away, he is the most encouraging sight in American soccer since the tournament ended.

A farewell that started as a party

All of it unfolded under the strangest of circumstances: a farewell that nobody had planned. Twenty-four hours before kick-off, Pochettino had announced that he was leaving the United States to become the head coach of Manchester United, according to Yardbarker. The announcement came a day after United sacked Michael Carrick, with the club 18th in the Premier League and in the relegation zone after winning one of their past 11 matches.

The details of the move, reported by multiple outlets, underline how quickly it happened. Pochettino, 54, has signed a two-and-a-half-year contract at Old Trafford that runs until the summer of 2029, according to theScore, and United will pay an exit clause to U.S. Soccer reported at around 8.9 million euros. He will take charge on 18 November, and his first match will be against Liverpool at Anfield on 22 November. United’s statement confirmed that an agreement had been reached with the United States federation for Pochettino and his staff to be released after the conclusion of their responsibilities with the national team.

Carrick’s sacking, announced on the Thursday, ended a permanent reign of just 15 matches. He had been given the job on a full-time basis at the end of last season after a third-placed finish, according to Yardbarker, and leaves with United having won three of 15 matches this season and sitting one point behind Nottingham Forest and the newly promoted Coventry City. Pochettino becomes United’s 13th appointment, including interim and caretaker hires, since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013.

For Pochettino, the move is a return to the league where he made his reputation, with Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, and a chance to manage one of the biggest clubs in the world. It is also, as Transfermarkt noted, a move that leaves him at the top of an awkward list: the manager with the most games managed without winning a major trophy. He will be only the second manager, after Jose Mourinho, to have taken charge of three of England’s so-called Big Six clubs.

For U.S. Soccer, the timing could hardly be worse. Pochettino’s new contract with the federation, announced on 3 August, was supposed to run through the 2030 World Cup. Instead it lasted three months. The federation will now, according to theScore, pursue Pep Guardiola as its top target to replace him, a pursuit that will be judged against the scale of the job: a national team that has just lost the coach who delivered its best World Cup in a generation, four years before the next one.

Pochettino’s own reaction, in his first public comments about the move, was tearful, according to NBC Sports. The players’ response, on the pitch, was more practical. “We played for him,” Trusty said in a post-match interview with TNT Sports, according to the Associated Press. “Obviously, he’s our gaffer. Obviously it’s sad that he’s moving on. It’s a great opportunity that he’s moving on to. But we played for him. It’s his team. It’s his identity, and the mindset is to win every single game, every single match.”

Balogun struck a similar note. “Pochettino is an amazing manager and he added a lot to us with the national team,” he told TNT Sports, according to the Associated Press. “It’s always sad to see a top coach leave but it’s a part of the sport.” The two quotes, taken together, describe a dressing room that is sad but not bitter, and a coach whose players wanted to send him off properly. On Saturday, they did.

What Pochettino leaves behind

The record Pochettino leaves behind is, by the standards of American soccer, a strong one. He was named head coach in September 2024, as the permanent replacement for Gregg Berhalter, and his record now stands at 22 wins, 12 losses and two draws in 36 matches, according to post-match reporting. Under his leadership the United States reached the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup final and advanced to the round of 16 at the 2026 World Cup on home soil.

The World Cup was the centrepiece. The United States finished first in their group and earned their first knockout-round victory since 2002, according to U.S. Soccer, and with three victories during the tournament Pochettino recorded the most World Cup wins of any head coach in the team’s history. The defeat to Belgium in the round of 16, by 4-1, was a heavy ending, and it cost Pulisic his fitness for the autumn, but the tournament as a whole was the best the United States had produced at a World Cup in a generation.

The Nations League tie against Haiti is, in that sense, the first official competition of the next cycle, and the first match of it has now been won 6-0. The United States are chasing a fourth Nations League title, having won the first three editions of the competition in 2021, 2023 and 2024. The 2021 final, a 3-2 extra-time victory over Mexico, remains one of the most celebrated matches in the team’s history. In 2023 they beat Canada 2-0, with goals from Chris Richards and Balogun. In 2024 they beat Mexico again, with Tyler Adams scoring an electrifying goal at the end of the first half, according to U.S. Soccer.

The one blemish on that record came in the most recent edition. In March 2025, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the United States conceded a goal in the fourth minute of second-half stoppage time to lose 1-0 to Panama in the semi-final, according to U.S. Soccer, and then lost the third-place match to Canada to finish fourth. Mexico went on to win the tournament and arrive at this edition as defending champions. The United States entered this tie, according to NBC Sports, with a 15-1-4 record across the competition’s first four editions. Saturday’s win makes it 16-1-4, and puts them one match away from a fifth consecutive appearance in the finals, which will be held from 25 to 28 March 2027 at SoFi Stadium.

The aggregate winner of this tie also qualifies directly for the 2027 CONCACAF Gold Cup, according to MLS Soccer. With a six-goal lead, that qualification is, for practical purposes, already secured.

Haiti’s night, and the crowd that made it theirs

For Haiti, the scoreline was a harsh ending to a week that had begun with promise. Les Grenadiers arrived in Miami as a team on the rise: they had ended 2025 with back-to-back wins over Costa Rica and Nicaragua in CONCACAF qualifying to win their group and earn a place at the World Cup for the first time since 1974, according to U.S. Soccer, ending a 52-year absence from the tournament.

The World Cup itself was a difficult education. Drawn into Group C with Brazil, Morocco and Scotland, Haiti lost all three matches: 1-0 to Scotland, 3-0 to Brazil and 4-2 to Morocco, a match in which they led twice in the first half, according to NBC Sports. After the group-stage exit, the federation parted ways with coach Sebastien Migne, and David Badia Cequier has taken charge, according to MLS Soccer.

The Nations League group stage that followed was far better. In September and October, Haiti earned nine points from four matches, beating Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, according to U.S. Soccer, to finish second in their group and advance to the quarter-finals against the United States. It was their first appearance at this stage of the competition, and it came against the team that has dominated it since its creation.

The history between the two teams is longer and closer than the scoreline suggests. The United States and Haiti have met 19 times since 1954, according to U.S. Soccer, and the Americans hold an all-time advantage of eight wins, six losses and five draws. The past five meetings had all been decided by a goal or less, and the most recent, at the 2025 Gold Cup, was a 2-1 United States win on goals from Tillman and Patrick Agyemang. The Americans have not lost to Haiti since a 1-0 defeat in Port-au-Prince on 5 November 1973, but until Saturday no meeting in the modern era had been settled by anything like six goals.

That is the measure of what happened in Miami. Haiti are not a weak team: they are a World Cup team, a quarter-finalist, and a side that beat Costa Rica twice in the space of a year. They were beaten 6-0 because the United States, for one night, played at a level Haiti could not reach, and because the Americans’ returning stars were determined to make a statement. The crowd knew it too. The roar that greeted Joseph’s disallowed goal was the sound of a crowd that had come to celebrate its own team and found, instead, a night to endure. But the crowd stayed, and the players kept running, and the second leg in Cincinnati, however hopeless the aggregate score, will still matter to them: it is a chance to restore some pride, and to show that the team that reached the World Cup is still in there.

Analysis: Why It Matters

The farewell became a coronation, and that changes the story

The most important thing about Saturday night is not the scoreline. It is the fact that a team that had every reason to be distracted, demoralised or simply disengaged played like a team with something to prove. Pochettino’s departure was announced 24 hours before kick-off. The players learned that the coach who had led them through a home World Cup, and who had signed a contract to stay through 2030, was leaving after two matches against Haiti. In most dressing rooms, that news produces a flat performance. In Miami, it produced six goals.

That matters because it answers the only question that really hung over this tie: whether the players still believed in the coach, or had already moved on. Trusty’s answer, that they played for him, that it is his team and his identity, is the kind of thing players say after every match. The performance is what made it true. A team that did not care would not have pressed for a sixth goal in the 82nd minute. A team that had checked out would not have produced nine shots on target and converted six of them. The farewell became a coronation, and that changes the story of Pochettino’s departure from a rupture into a send-off.

Pulisic’s return is the real news of the night

The second thing that matters is Pulisic, and it matters more than the scoreline. The United States’ entire project for the next four years depends on one player staying fit and in form, and for most of the autumn that player was injured. His microfracture, sustained in the Belgium defeat, kept him out of four matches that the United States won without him, which is encouraging in itself, but the team that won those matches was a young team learning to play without its captain. The team that beat Haiti was the full team, and the difference was obvious.

Two goals in two minutes, a place in the record books, and a performance rated 9.2 out of 10 is the best possible return. But the deeper point is what it signals for the next cycle. Pulisic is 28. The next World Cup is in 2030, when he will be 32. The four years between now and then are, in all likelihood, the peak years of his career, and the question that will define them is whether the national team can build a side that does not collapse when he is absent. Saturday suggested it can, because Hall, Tillman and Balogun all scored or created, but it also suggested that with him, the ceiling is far higher. The record books will remember the 35th goal. The coaches who follow Pochettino will remember that the team scored six when its captain was back.

Six goals against a World Cup team is not a friendly

It is tempting to dismiss a 6-0 win over Haiti as a mismatch, and the temptation should be resisted. Haiti are not a minnow. They played at the World Cup five months ago. They beat Costa Rica, a team that has reached World Cup quarter-finals, twice in the space of a year. They finished second in their Nations League group with nine points from four matches. The United States had beaten them by a single goal in each of their past five meetings.

To beat a team of that calibre by six goals, with six goals from nine shots on target, is not a routine result. It is the kind of result that happens when a team is focused, ruthless and in form all at once. It is also, notably, the largest margin of victory the United States have managed since the 2023 Gold Cup, and the most goals they have scored in a match under Pochettino. The context matters: this was not a friendly against an overmatched opponent. It was a competitive quarter-final against a World Cup team, and the Americans won it by six.

The timing is terrible for U.S. Soccer, and the win makes it worse

The fourth thing that matters is the timing, and here the 6-0 win is almost a problem. Pochettino is leaving at the precise moment his team is playing its best football under him. The World Cup was the best the United States had produced in a generation. The first match of the new cycle was the biggest win of his tenure. The players are publicly devoted to him. And he is going anyway, because Manchester United, 18th in the Premier League and in the relegation zone, offered him a job he could not refuse.

That is the reality of international football in 2026: a club in crisis can outbid a federation for a coach, even a federation that has just signed that coach through 2030. U.S. Soccer’s reported pursuit of Pep Guardiola as a replacement tells its own story about the scale of the ambition, and the scale of the risk. Guardiola is the most decorated coach in the modern game, and he is also a man who has never managed a national team, and who would be taking over a side four years from a World Cup with a squad that has just lost the coach it trusted. If the pursuit succeeds, it will be a coup. If it fails, the federation will have lost Pochettino and spent the winter chasing a name it could not land, while the team plays on without a permanent coach.

The win in Miami sharpens that dilemma. It proves that the squad Pochettino built is good, and that the next coach will inherit a team in form rather than in crisis. It also proves that the coach who built it is leaving at the top, which is the hardest moment at which to replace anyone.

The next cycle starts now, and it starts with teenagers

The fifth thing that matters is the age of the players who made the difference. Hall is 18. He scored, he won the penalty, and he played like a veteran. The roster Pochettino named for this tie included eight players from Major League Soccer, according to MLS Soccer, as the youth movement he had begun continued into the new cycle. The first official competition of the 2030 World Cup cycle was, in that sense, a preview of the next four years: a team built around a 28-year-old captain, a returning core of European-based stars, and a generation of teenagers and early-twenty-somethings who are being given competitive matches now so that they are ready when the next World Cup arrives.

That is the correct strategy, and Saturday was evidence that it is working. The danger is that a coaching change interrupts it. A new coach brings new ideas, new favourites and new systems, and a young player who was central to one coach’s plans can become peripheral to another’s. The best thing U.S. Soccer can do for Hall, and for the generation behind him, is to appoint a successor quickly, and to appoint one who sees the same future Pochettino saw. The worst thing it can do is to spend the winter chasing a famous name while the team drifts. The 6-0 win bought the federation time. It should not waste it.

What to Watch Next

1. Tuesday in Cincinnati: The second leg, at TQL Stadium on 17 November at 7 p.m. ET, is Pochettino’s final match in charge. The tie is effectively over, so the interest will be in the occasion itself: the send-off, the team selection, and whether the Americans complete the job professionally or treat it as a celebration.
2. The Guardiola pursuit: U.S. Soccer will reportedly pursue Pep Guardiola as its top target. Watch for any confirmation from the federation, any comment from Guardiola’s camp, and any sign of a timeline. A quick appointment steadies the team; a long chase leaves it drifting.
3. Pulisic’s fitness: Two goals in his first competitive match back is the ideal return, but the real test is whether he stays fit through the winter with AC Milan. His availability has been the single biggest variable in the national team’s fortunes for years.
4. Hall’s next step: The 18-year-old has now scored in a competitive quarter-final and created a penalty in the same match. Watch whether he keeps his starting place on Tuesday, and whether European clubs begin to circle in the January window.
5. Balogun’s redemption arc: His goal and his “I’m back” celebration suggest a player determined to reclaim his place. Watch whether he starts in Cincinnati, and whether his club form at Monaco recovers now that the transfer uncertainty is behind him.
6. The Nations League finals: The aggregate winner advances to the finals from 25 to 28 March 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the same venue where the United States lost their 2025 semi-final to Panama. Mexico, the defending champions, will be waiting.
7. Pochettino at Anfield: Five days after his final United States match, Pochettino takes charge of Manchester United against Liverpool on 22 November. The contrast could hardly be sharper: from a 6-0 win in a farewell to a relegation fight at Anfield.

Sources

• Associated Press, via TSN — “Pulisic, Balogun return as US routs Haiti in Nations League and Pochettino’s farewell”
• NBC Sports — “Haiti vs USMNT live updates: Recap, reaction, analysis, video highlights from CONCACAF Nations League”
• U.S. Soccer — “USMNT Kicks Off First Official Competition of New Cycle in Chase of Fourth Concacaf Nations League Title”
• U.S. Soccer — “USMNT vs. Haiti: Opponent Profile, Recent Form & History”
• theScore — “Pochettino leaving USMNT to become Manchester United coach”
• Sports Illustrated — “USMNT Player Ratings vs. Haiti: Mauricio Pochettino’s Farewell Tour Off to Perfect Start”