The United States Men’s National Team fell 1-2 to Germany in Chicago, Illinois, in its final send-off match before the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
German striker Kai Havertz opened the scoring in the second minute, but American left back Antonee Robinson leveled the game at the end of the first half with a long-distance screamer. Germany’s Leroy Sane slotted a goal past USMNT keeper Matt Freese in the second half to seal the game in Germany’s favor.
The USMNT was not expected to win this match; it scheduled this friendly against Germany to test its mettle against the world’s best. When viewed through that lens, its close, hard-fought loss was no tragedy, but it did halt some of the momentum the team picked up after beating Senegal 3-2 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Here are the key takeaways from the USMNT’s acceptable, but not exactly inspiring, performance:
Antonee Robinson was ready for that goal…
Antonee “Jedi” Robinson is one of the USMNT’s best players; stack-rank him against any left back in the world and he’ll come out looking competitive. But Robinson isn’t a goalscorer in the traditional sense — he’s much more of a creator than a finisher — so when he finds the back of the net, it’s headline news. His last goal for the USMNT was way back when in 2023.
Until now. Robinson scored a glorious long-range screamer off the bar to equalize the game at 1-1 in the first half. It was a cool finish from an infrequent scorer. And it was telling that his celebration — a pretty impressive acrobatic roundoff back-tuck situation — was just as on-point as his goal was. If Robinson hadn’t been expecting to score, he wouldn’t have thrown a Cirque du Soleil move like that off the cuff. He was drilled and he was ready…and his high-flying celebration proved it.
Robinson wound up limping off in the second half; here’s to hoping he’ll be back to his back-flipping best in time for the World Cup.