Because he was one yellow card away from being ejected from this game and suspended for the next, and because he’d already scored twice to provide a lead for the United States men’s national team — while delivering more than his share of labor in defense of that lead — winger Diego Luna was required to play only 77 minutes of the CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinal against Guatemala in steamy St. Louis.
Removing him from the game was the prudent thing to do for U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino.
But it was not the same team without him, was it?
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Luna’s two goals provided the margin of the 2-1 victory that advanced the USMNT to the final Sunday against archrival Mexico at Houston’s NRG Stadium. He now has three goals and two assists in the tournament, which means he has been involved in nearly half the team’s dozen goals.
The commitment he’s shown to pursuing victory, though, has been as obvious as those contributions that could be counted.
“I try to provide all the coaching staff to see things in a different way,” Pochettino said. “And I think if I can put an example, it's Diego: That’s what we expect from a player. Of course, you have to score goals, but his attitude, the hunger, desire, everything — and then, for sure, the talent. But that is what we expect from our athletes. That’s what we want.
“Win or lose, it’s not the same. It’s a lot of consequence. And if you go to play a sport only for fun, the rest of the opponents and the different countries, you play for survival, you play for food, you play for pride, you play for many things. It’s not to go and enjoy and go home and laugh, and that’s it.
“The moment we, now, this roster, we start to live in this way — I think we have big room to improve. But I think Diego was a good example … He’s desperate to play for this shirt, for the national team. And that is why, now, he’s at the level that he showed.”
It has become damned near impossible to imagine a 26-player U.S. roster for the 2026 FIFA World Cup that does not include Luna, who most definitely is not the Diego Luna that I encountered last month at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in New York or the star of films from “Y tu mama tambien” to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”
There has to be a place for a player with the skill to score with each of his feet in the victory over Guatemala, as well as the work ethic to cover so much ground in helping to preserve that early lead. He is the second-youngest USMNT player to score twice in a Gold Cup semifinal, behind only Christian Pulisic, who did it age 20 in 2019.
Luna, 21, scored the first goal in the fourth minute, pouncing on a rebound of a powerful shot from the top of the box that Guatemala keeper Kenderson Navarro could not handle. Luna was close to the goal but onside, and he dashed past his defender and used his left foot to knock the ball into the goal.
The second was a more conventional, artistic goal, a strike from roughly 18 yards out that soared inside the left post. It was the product of a nice bit of hustle by midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, who fought against a defender to keep the ball from rolling out of bounds then flicked it to striker Patrick Agyemang. He couldn’t quite handle it but did manage to forward it to midfielder Malik Tillman, whose pass found Luna on the left.
The play that set up the goal was impressive, but the goal itself was a beauty.
“I think it’s just finding the rhythm and being able to get the freedom from the coaching staff and from the team and know that they’re going to have my back and the trust of the defensive responsibilities that allows me to just do what I do on the ball,” Luna told Fox Sports.
That Luna carried the USMNT into the Gold Cup final is remarkable given it comes almost exactly a year since he was excluded from the roster of mostly U-23 players who represented their nation at the Olympic Games in Paris. It was a stunning decision by coach Marko Mitrovic, given Luna had delivered four assists and a goal in the qualification process — and he was in the middle of an eight-goal, eight-assist season for Real Salt Lake that earned him Major League Soccer All-Star honors.
And it had a price. The U.S. qualified for the quarterfinals with victories over New Zealand and Guinea but then were embarrassed, 4-0, by Morocco.
Luna was eligible to represent Mexico in international competition, and that absurd exclusion from the Olympics almost cost the USMNT this promising talent. He talked openly last summer about the possibility of switching, but never acted on it. And here he is.
"Every single one of these players think about it the same way I do," Luna told Fox Sports. "This is the No. 1 dream we've had as a kid, and we're going to fight for this: to have as many chances to wear it as we can."
Luna is one of the most skilled players America has produced. His beautiful flick in the 48th minute along the left sideline, over the shoulder of a defender and into the feet of left back Max Arfsten, was the sort of technique that hasn’t been common for the USMNT.
It is more than mere skill with Luna. Although he does not have the look of a sprinter, he was the one who went from helping to clear a corner kick out of the U.S. box to attempting to gain control of a long clearance nearly at the opposite end of the field as the hour mark of the game approached.
The U.S. gave up half its lead after he left the game. Even with him in there, there were, among the Americans, too many back-passes out of convenience rather than necessity after the first two goals. But the team did not have the same verve without him.
“He’s Diego Luna. He does stuff like that,” Berhalter told Fox Sports. “To score two goals like that in the semifinals — it’s why he’s him. It’s why he’s one of the best players in MLS. It’s why he’s one of the best players here … and why we count on him.”
There is a persistent narrative regarding the American soccer development system that insists gifted players frequently are being missed by talent evaluators, presumably because they’re not as big or physical as other youths. This is hard to reconcile given that Luna climbed through various academies — his home-region San Jose Earthquakes at age 13, then the Barcelona Residency Academy in Arizona at 15 — and into the pro game. He signed a professional contract with the El Paso Locomotive of the USL Championship at 17.
Luna is carrying a listed 187 pounds on his 5-8 frame. His wide torso does not resemble that of any previous USMNT player, nor perhaps any player you might have seen playing international soccer. But he ranks among the most energetic players on the roster — and not just this Gold Cup group, but if all the national team regulars were gathered.
Scouts found him because he was a talent. A baller. A competitor. And definitely a winner.
And Pochettino saw all of that when Luna was invited to the national team’s training camp in January, which included mostly MLS players playing in friendlies in Florida against Venezuela and Costa Rica, both won by the USMNT. In the second of those, Luna broke his nose inside the first 20 minutes because of an opponent’s accidental elbow, but he insisted on continuing to play.
“He’s improving,” Pochettino said. “He’s improving in international games. It’s completely different to playing in your domestic league. And he’s getting experience. I’m happy.
“How important was January, you know, to discover a player like him and to give him confidence? People say it’s useless, but it’s not useless. I think it’s important for the national team.”
He could say the same about Luna, in particular.
It’s more important, though, that it be said when the U.S. World Cup roster is announced.