Winger Timothy Weah says the American team needs to “go back to the lab and work” after Belgium thrashed the World Cup co-hosts in Atlanta on Saturday.
The visitors went on a rampage at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, beating five of their hosts to pile up the pressure on American coach Mauricio Pochettino with this summer’s tournament just months away.
Weston McKennie had opened the scoring for the United States in the first half, but the Red Devils responded with goals from Zeno Debast, Amadou Onana, a penalty from Charles De Ketelaere and a brace from substitute Dodi Lukebakio.
Patrick Agyemang then pulled one back for the hosts late on, but it proved to be little more than a consolation.
After the match, Weah, who plays for French side Marseille on loan from Juventus, admitted it had been a difficult night for the United States but insisted there was time to recover before the start of the World Cup.
“[It was] “It was definitely a difficult experience,” he said.
“You come into the game hungry and wanting to win. Obviously that didn’t work for us today.”
“We just have to get back in the lab and work and keep working, work on our game and our mentality.
“Now is the best time for this to happen. We have a World Cup to think about. We want to perform and we want to improve.”
Pochettino refuses to panic
Pochettino, meanwhile, refused to worry too much about the result, insisting his team had the better of the first half.
“The first half was really good, I thought we played better than Belgium,” the American coach said.
“It’s just a game.”
The United States hopes to bounce back when it hosts Portugal at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Tuesday.
Pochettino’s team will then play matches against Senegal and Germany in May and June before kicking off their World Cup campaign against Paraguay on June 13 (UK time) in Inglewood, California.
