Shuffled lineup fails to help U.S. in Panama
Anibal Godoy scored in the 54th minute and Panama upended the United States 1-0 in a World Cup qualifier Sunday night in Panama City when American coach Gregg Berhalter started a largely secondstring lineup in the middle of another hectic stretch of three matches in seven days.
Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna and Weston McKennie were out with injuries, Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson were on the bench, and Antonee Robinson didn’t travel because of British COVID-19 rules.
With the U.S. lineup far from its best, the Americans looked both nervous and overamped for stretches of the first half.
Adams entered at the start of the second half and gave away a corner kick that led to the goal. Eric Davis’ corner was headed by Godoy past goalkeeper Matt Turner and inside the far post.
“We’re going to look back at this and be frustrated,” Turner said. “They got a huge boost from their home crowd and we didn’t match and exceed that.”
In the final hectic minutes, the game was interrupted twice when fans ran onto the field. The ball boys occasionally threw on multiple balls after one would go out of bounds.
“The ball boys were throwing, kicking the balls onto the field as high as they could,” Turner said. “And I was just trying to keep the chaos off the field as much as I could and keep our momentum going.”
The defeat ended a 13-game unbeaten streak for the Americans that included 11 wins. Nations League: Kylian Mbappe scored a late winner as world champion France came from behind to beat Spain 2-1 in the Nations League final in Milan. The match burst into life shortly after the hour mark. Mikel Oyarzabal fired Spain in front but its lead lasted less than two minutes before a magnificent finish from Karim Benzema. Italy beat Belgium 2-1 in the third-place match.
MLS: Cole Bassett, Michael Barrios and Lucas Esteves scored late goals to help the 10-man Colorado Rapids earn a 3-1 win over Minnesota United (10-10-8) in St. Paul, Minn. After falling behind on Adrien Hunou’s first-half goal and losing Danny Wilson to a red card in the 57th minute, Colorado (14-5-9) scored three times in the final 20 minutes.