Christian Pulisic’s hat trick powers the USMNT’s 5-1 rout of Panama in World Cup qualifying

ORLANDO — Officially, the U.S. men’s soccer team hasn’t qualified for the World Cup yet. But all those fans who’ve been full of angst and anxiety over the last four and a half years can breathe now.

Led by Christian Pulisic’s first senior national team hat trick, the Americans pounded Panama, 5-1, on Sunday night at Exploria Stadium.

It wasn’t enough to clinch a World Cup berth, because of Costa Rica’s 2-1 win at El Salvador. But the second-place Americans have now guaranteed at least fourth, which goes to an inter-continental playoff in June. And they will play at fourth-place Costa Rica on Wednesday with a lead of three points in the standings and 10 goals in the goal difference margin.

That means the U.S. would have to lose by six goals in San José to miss out on an automatic ticket to Qatar. Even the cynics out there can admit the odds of that are tiny.

“We knew we were in a position where the group needed to respond, and when I look at the effort and intensity of the first half and the level that we were playing at, it was really impressive,” U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter said. “You can see exactly what the guys took on, and their motivation to get back to the World Cup. We scored five goals in the game — I think we could have had more.”

In this game, the Americans looked sluggish early on, not surprising since they spent so much energy in Thursday’s scoreless tie at rival Mexico. It also didn’t help that, per a report on Fox’s pregame show, eight players and 10 staff members caught a stomach bug some time after the Mexico game. It was unclear whether the bug started while they were still in Mexico, or after they arrived in Orlando.

» READ MORE: Why the USMNT needed to run up the score against Panama

But it soon didn’t matter. A 12th-minute free kick followed by back-to-back corner kicks energized the players and the crowd. As the second corner was served in, Walker Zimmerman was shoved in the throat by Panama’s Aníbal Godoy — a teammate on Nashville SC.

Initially, the referee crew let the contact go. But the video review booth told referee Iván Barton he should go to the monitor, so he did. He didn’t need long to point to the spot.

Pulisic stepped up, slammed the ball past Luis Mejía, and the roar of catharsis from the sellout crowd of 25,022 shook the stands.

Panama threatened in the 20th after a calamitous sequence of U.S. defending left Zack Steffen’s goal open, and the Downingtown native banged up. The Americans escaped the play, but Steffen went to the turf a moment later and took a while to get up.

While U.S. fans went back to stressing out, their team went and scored another goal: a Zimmerman long ball to Pulisic, who laid off to Antonee “Jedi” Robinson — while getting crunched by Michael Murrillo — who floated a superb cross that Paul Arriola met with an inch-perfect header to the far post.

Twenty-three minutes into the game, it was 2-0.

Four minutes later, it was 3-0. Jesús Ferreira got the last touch of a pretty passing buildup, and scored the first goal by a U.S. striker in qualifying since Oct. 7 — a stretch of eight games.

» READ MORE: U.S. men achieve tie with Mexico at the Azteca

Pulisic then made it 4-0 with another penalty kick in first-half stoppage time. And he capped off the half by being at the center of a brief brawl in front of Panama’s bench, caused by a shove from Murillo. As they tussled, a ball was thrown in the Hershey native’s direction from Panama’s bench that sent him running that way before teammates cooled him down.

In the 65th minute, Pulisic put the emphatic finishing touch on his hat trick with a brilliant goal, spinning past two Panamanian defenders and depositing the ball to Mejía’s far post. Five minutes later, Pulisic was subbed off to a standing ovation.

When Berhalter was asked after the game whether he wanted his team to run up the score, he answered without hesitation: “Absolutely. We wanted to be aggressive, we wanted to put them on their heels, we wanted to play with intensity, and we also wanted to score goals. So it’s great to see that output.”

Panama’s goal came from Godoy in the 86th minute, a header off a free kick. That soured the mood, but only for a moment. The crowd let it out at the final whistle, finally as free of its own burdens as the players in front of them.

Canada finally clinched its first men’s World Cup berth with a 4-0 rout of Andre Blake’s Jamaica in Toronto. Mexico edged Honduras, 1-0, on the road in San Pedro Sula to stay in third place.

1. Canada, 8-1-4, 28 points (+17 goal difference)

2. United States, 7-2-4, 25 (+13)

3. Mexico, 7-2-4, 25 (+7)

4. Costa Rica, 6-3-4, 22 (+3)

Already eliminated

5. Panama, 5-5-3, 18

6. El Salvador, 2-4-7, 10

7. Jamaica, 1-5-7, 8

8. Honduras, 0-9-4, 4