Footy Fix: USMNT wrap up perfect international break with fourth straight win in 1-0 victory over Canada

Oct 7, 2026 at 12:20 pm ET • 5 min read

Hello! The men's international break came to a fascinating conclusion on Tuesday in different pockets of the world and between Lionel Messi's farewell, Cristiano Ronaldo's meltdown and the U.S. men's national team's win over Canada, there's much to discuss. I'm Pardeep Cattry with the latest.

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🇺🇸 USMNT go four for four

The U.S. men's national team picked up a fourth straight win on Tuesday, this time a 1-0 victory over Canada in which yet another teenager impressed as head coach Mauricio Pochettino oversees a generational shift in the player pool.

Justin Ellis was the standout on Tuesday, scoring the lone goal in the 28th minute of a match that was defined more by the 43 fouls between the two sides than the 12 combined shots they took. The physical tone of the match was set by Canada, who created a chippy atmosphere in the hopes of disrupting the USMNT's high-intensity, attack-minded flow. It worked for the most part. The U.S. were limited to just five shots, tied for the lowest total in a game during Pochettino's tenure, and had few meaningful spells of possession.

The USMNT, though, wriggled their way out of trouble by doing the one thing Canada did not -- actually taking advantage of the opportunities in front of them. Ellis' goal was the U.S. team's only shot on target on Tuesday, but the visitors set them up perfectly for it by leaving plenty of space around right wingback Alex Freeman for him to cut inside and set up the 19-year-old for a simple finish. Ellis' outing was the game in a microcosm, the forward taking a kick to the ankle midway through the first half and was visibly limping shortly after returning to play. He scored minutes later but came off at halftime with a right leg contusion that required him to leave the match midway to get an MRI at a nearby hospital.

The new-look USMNT's ability to survive challenging circumstances has become a theme of the four-game international break, one in which Pochettino always struck a balance between youth and experience no matter the combination of players on the pitch. The newcomers, though, left a very strong first impression this fall, especially as it pertained to solving problems -- Ellis has two goals in two starts, while Julian Hall has three goals and an assist in four games and Cavan Sullivan notched his first goal in the U.S. team's 3-0 win over Mexico on Saturday. They have been equally responsible for the USMNT's clinical edge as their more experienced teammates, fully accomplishing the mission in their first exposures to the senior national team.

The low-pressure environment of this camp, one that Pochettino intentionally cultivated this fall, might officially be a thing of the past, though. Competitive matches now make up the bulk of the calendar for the next year – they play in the Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals against Haiti in November and could advance to March's semifinal, while the Concacaf Gold Cup awaits next summer and World Cup qualification begins in the fall. Pochettino admitted as much post-match, too.

• Pochettino: "Now [what's] coming [is] the most difficult thing, no? It's how we support these young players. The easiest thing always is to arrive there and make their debuts, but now, [it's] how we [are] going to evolve with them and how we are going to protect them, how we are going to guide, how we are going to make them understand that now they have more responsibility. That is one of the things we were talking [about in] the dressing room, too, is they need to feel that now they have more responsibility. They come back now, tomorrow, to their clubs. It's about to say, yes, you add more responsibility to your game, with yourself but with the team, with the teammates. It's not, 'I'm [an] international now; my teammates need to run for me.' No. You need to run for you and your teammates. Yes, that is the mentality that we are trying to apply, and I think they are so smart and intelligent. They have talent, and for sure, they will use that experience to be much better players with more experience and for sure, the future with these talented players, young, talented players plus the senior players that we have, I think we have a really good mix, and I hope that we can guide this group of players to reach our best level and compete in our best way, trying to be with the big national teams in the future."

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