Score USMNT vs. Colombia: US suffer biggest defeat of Gregg Berhalter era after 5-1 thrashing

LANDOVER, Md. — The United States men’s national team’s preparation for the Copa America started with a 5-1 defeat against Colombia on Saturday in what is the team’s worst loss under Gregg Berhalter. After quick goals from John Arias and Rafael Santos Borre, the USMNT was able to get a goal back after a good pass from Folarin Balogun against Tim Weah, but it was not the start of a comeback as Colombia scored an insurance goal in the 77th minute via Richard Rios. With everything already out of reach, Jorge Carrascal quickly scored a fourth, followed by Luis Sinisterra with a fifth for Colombia for good measure. With the USMNT facing their toughest opposition this calendar year in twelfth-ranked Colombia, it was a match that continued to show there is still a lot of work to be done.

This was still a friendly match where Berhalter wanted to know more about his team, which shows Christian Pulisic was withdrawn at half so Haji Wright could manage his minutes Tim Ream And Weston McKennie both are withdrawn before the end of the match. But now that the Copa America starts on June 21 with a match against Bolivia, improvement is needed and quickly. There is another friendly match on Wednesday, but against an even stronger team Brazil while the Americans are looking for momentum.

How it happened

Things couldn’t have started worse for the USMNT Antonee Robinson The clearance fell right at the feet of Arias, who fired straight at him Matt Turner that was no longer possible to open the score only six minutes into the match. That was bad enough, but thirteen minutes later, after losing the ball in the first phase of a corner kick, Santos Borre’s bicycle kick found the back of the net. They’re two goals that aren’t that bad on their own, but combined in the same half they really put the USMNT behind the ball.

Granted, Balogun was unlucky not to find the back of the net himself and the USMNT attack found good chances as Gio Reyna found ways to get out of tight areas, but heading into the Copa America will only be a good team if not overthrow Colombia. These are games that require the USMNT to unlock a new loadout, but it’s one they haven’t shown yet while playing under Berhalter.

This is why they play games like this against the top teams in the world, but so far it hasn’t told us much that we don’t already know. Colombia know their identity and know they can lean on the counterattack, but with so much rotation, the USMNT defense looked disjointed. To replace Sergino Dest is a process, but the lack of balance in the USMNT build-up is one of the things that is lost without his ability on the ball.

Things didn’t get much better in the second half, as Colombia had several chances to score goals by shutting down USMNT defenders. Robinson rarely looked comfortable dealing with overloads on the left and while the USMNT attack created chances, they did not do enough to hinder Colombia from counter-attacking when they had opportunities to get forward. While some things can be attributed to the lack of Dest in the build-up, the hesitation in the game so close to a major tournament can only be a concern.

Copa America is the moment when the USMNT will learn a lot about themselves, whether good or bad heading into 2026, but failure to clean up the mistakes made in Landover on Saturday will lead to a quick exit from the tournament .