Auston Trusty scores early as USA tops Turkey in World Cup group stage

Auston Trusty scored with his left foot inside the first three minutes against Turkey, and Mauricio Pochettino rushed in to celebrate with a kiss and hug after the defender’s first goal for the United States. The corner-kick finish at Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood, California, gave the U.S. an early jolt in its final Group D match and turned a routine group-stage ending into a statement about trust between coach and player.

The goal arrived with the Americans already through to the Round of 32 and already locked into first place in Group D. That security allowed Pochettino to leave Christian Pulisic on the bench and send out nine new starters, a rotation that still produced one of the fastest and most memorable moments of the U.S. group stage. Trusty’s strike gave the team a lead almost immediately and fit the aggressive start the Americans wanted before the knockout rounds.

Trusty, a 27-year-old center back for Celtic, has become a notable part of Pochettino’s player pool since the Argentine took over the U.S. job in September 2024. Trusty rejoined the senior national team in November 2025 after focusing on his club career in Europe, was called into the March 2026 camp in Atlanta, and then made the World Cup roster. His finish against Turkey made him only the third USMNT player of the modern era to score his first senior international goal at a World Cup, joining Julian Green and John Brooks.

The embrace from Pochettino mattered as much as the goal itself. It showed a coach willing to make visible emotion part of his management style, rewarding a defender who had worked his way back into the program and seized a rare starting chance on the sport’s biggest stage. With the Americans already through and now unbeaten in group play, the scene in Inglewood offered a clear picture of a squad still searching for identity but increasingly shaped by trust, role acceptance, and a coach-player connection that has started to look real.