INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Sebastian Berhalter wrote his name into FIFA World Cup history Thursday night, on two fronts.

With his equalizing goal and assist to Auston Trusty in a man-of-the-match performance for the US men’s national team in what turned out as a last-gasp 3-2 loss to Turkiye, the Vancouver Whitecaps FC midfielder became the first USMNT player to achieve that stat line on this stage in the modern era, as well as the first active MLS player ever to do so.

Berhalter’s goal celebration was deeply on-brand: No celebration at all, merely running into the net to grab the ball and run it back out to the halfway line to restart play, hungry to keep chasing the victory that coach Mauricio Pochettino’s completely new starting XI deeply wanted, but let slip away at the death.

“The ball just popped out, and I knew if I just stayed calm and just made a swinging motion, that I had a chance – I practice those a lot,” Berhalter told reporters of his goal postgame. “Seeing that go in was awesome, and my first thought was to get the ball back, and let's go again.”

All-out effort 

The goal contributions were the capstone to a characteristically relentless overall engine-room outing: 89 touches, 56/64 passes completed (88%), a game-high five chances created, two of them big chances, as well as nine passes played into the final third, five defensive contributions, eight recoveries, 7/12 ground duels won, four fouls drawn and three committed.

“He was top, man,” said Brenden Aaronson afterwards. “It's everything that you want in your [No.] 6 and more. He plays with so much passion, he plays with so much confidence, and you love to see it, because you know he's a guy that gives his all day in and day out in training, and whenever he comes into games.

“It's a credit to him, because he deserves this moment.”

Another teammate, Chris Richards, offered a canine comparison that ranks as one of soccer’s most laudatory metaphors.

“Pit bull-ish, I’d say,” he said of Berhalter’s display. “He's definitely a guy who likes getting stuck in. He's a guy who I think we also look to for mentality, he's one of those guys, and he topped it off with a goal.”

Learning moment

The Yanks had already clinched first place in Group D thanks to their wins over Paraguay and Australia. That gave Pochettino latitude to change out his entire starting lineup save linchpin Weston McKennie, offering reserves valuable World Cup minutes while also getting Christian Pulisic a useful second-half cameo after a leg contusion sidelined him in their second match.

Allowing Kaan Ayhan to tap home an injury-time winner for already-eliminated Turkiye when a 2-2 draw was almost within their grasp did sting, and saps a bit of the feel-good factor about this squad, whose strong start to this match sent another big, loud, celebrity-heavy Los Angeles crowd into raptures.

“It's not going to be perfect. No tournament is perfect,” said Tyler Adams, whose spot at the base of midfield Berhalter filled, with the Red Bull New York product rested to prevent him from picking up a yellow card that would have led to a suspension in the USMNT’s win-or-else round-of-32 match, a clash with Bosnia and Herzegovina in the San Francisco Bay area on Wednesday.

“You live and you learn. I think a lot of the guys will take lessons from that game. Lot of good performances otherwise.”

Knockouts next

Berhalter, too, focused on the positive.

“Proud, I think, of the response in the second half,” he said, “to come out and be ready for the fight, listen to what Mauricio said, take it in, and show we were there. So yeah, again, the game's moments, and they [Turkiye] took the most out of their moments, but we were right there.

“We gave everything we had, and we'll be ready for the knockouts.”

Now 25, his star turn is rendered that much sweeter by his backstory.

The son of former US coach Gregg Berhalter, he attended the 2022 World Cup as a member of the USMNT’s friends and family delegation, quietly dreaming of his own rise to the planet’s biggest stage despite limited signs of such a dramatic ascension earlier in his career with the Columbus Crew and Austin FC.

“It's no secret that with his dad being the coach, for a little bit maybe he felt like his window to the national team was kind of blocked,” noted Richards. “But he never let his last name define him when it came to coming into camp. So I'm really happy for him.”