On this night, the United States had gone past trying to get respect from the rest of the world.
The USA wanted a win. They wanted a trophy and a title.
The U.S. came tantalizingly close to pull off its second upset of a world soccer power in five days, but could not hold off a second-half Brazilian onslaught in the FIFA Confederations Cup final on Sunday night.
There certainly were some hard lessons to be learned in the 3-2 loss at Ellis Park.
Such as learning how to close out games and making it difficult on the opposition to comeback, even when the foes are Brazil.
"We've shown that we can play with these teams," goalkeeper Tim Howard said. "We defend. We fight. We score goals. We defend really well. We need to get the small little things right. If you look at Brazil, Italy and Spain. They work hard, but they do the little things right for 90 minutes. That creates a heck of a problem. we need to get better at that."
But as U.S. coach Bob Bradley says, that's Brazil being Brazil. They're supposed to turn deficits into wins, while playing the beautiful game.
This wasn't the first time the Brazilians transformed a two-goal deficit into a victory and it certainly won't be the last.
But that didn't make the loss feel any less better. The U.S. players realized they had let one slip away.
"Coming into the game, people said you don't have anything to lose," Howard said. "Bottom line, we had everything to lose tonight. You don't get a final very often. You have to make the most of it. It's painful. It hurt. We worked hard to get here. Then we took our lumps. We came out fighting. We did a great job tonight. It didn't come together at the end."
The USA started the tournament not exactly on the right foot, losing to Italy 3-1 in Group B action. They then were embarrassed by Brazil, 3-1. They managed to qualify for the semifinals by pulling up a 3-0 win over Egypt as Brazil bounced the Italians by the same score.
It got better as the U.S. stunned top-ranked Spain, 2-0, in Wednesday's semifinals, setting up Sunday's rematch with the Brazilians.
In some respects, Sunday's first half was reminiscent of Spain game as the USA came out unintimidated by the South Americans.
As well as the U.S. played, they still have a ways to go to beat the world's powers on a consistent basis. They certainly proved they can play with them.
"I think we need to get to the point where, flip the coin," Howard said. "If they're winning 2-0, we don't have a prayer and we need to get to that point. We've got ourselves into a good position winning 2-0. We've got to figure out a way to close the game out, whether we create another chance, put it away or stop them from creating very good chances. They put us on a bad foot. They're a great team. We need to get to that level. Hopefully we will."
The USA were at another level in the opening half, scoring off of a pair of world-class goals by Clint Dempsey (10th minute) and Donovan (27th minute).
"I think we gave them everything they can handle," Howard said.
The game's turning point came only 39 seconds into the second half when Luis Fabiano scored the first of his two goals, striking a shot from the top of the penalty area to slice the lead in half.
"Which pretty much killed us," forward Jozy Altidore said.
The U.S. was never the same. There was an inevitability that the Brazilians would not only equalize, but take the lead.
Slowly, but surely the Brazilians wore down the U.S. They didn't just hold the ball for long periods of time. They attacked, sending ball after ball into the penalty area.
"It wasn't from lack of effort," captain and defender Carlos Bocanegra said. "The guys were just tired from defending. Then we would have to turn around and run the other way. We just didn't have much left."
More often than not, the U.S. backline, led by central defender Oguchi Onyweu, repelled Brazil's onslaught. Tim Howard, named the Golden Glove winner as the best goalkeeper of the tournament, was up to the task, making 10 saves, some of them beauties.
Howard was good, every good, but he wasn't perfect.
The Brazilians' efforts paid off when they equalized in the 74th minute as Luis Fabiano headed home a rebound of a Robinho shot that hit the crossbar. Then came Lucio's winning header off a corner kick from second-half sub Elano in the 84th minute.
"Look, it's Brazil," Donovan said. "You have to expect they're going to get chances. They're going to keep coming. They have players on their team that are probably three times as much worth as our own team. There's a reason for that."
Howard gave credit where credit was due.
"It's amazing being out there, how off balance they put you," he said. "A lot of times you get a player, 'I'm going to make him go left. He's going to shoot to the right.' They keep us so off balance. You have no idea what they're going to do until they actually do it. And then you react. That's why they are the way they are and the players are all world class."
Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News and is editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He can be reached at SoccerWriter516@aol.com. Views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
