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Disappointment from Mexico loss lingers for U.S. going into Costa Rica friendly

Disappointment from Mexico loss lingers for U.S. going into Costa Rica friendly

HARRISON, N.J. – The hurt is raw and the memory tenderly fresh. But there's very little time for all of that.

Just three days after the United States men's national team's crushing extra-time 3-2 defeat to archrivals Mexico in a playoff for a spot in the 2017 Confederations Cup, a friendly with Costa Rica awaits on the other coast on Tuesday.

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"Obviously, it's a very quick turnaround," the team's beleaguered head coach Jurgen Klinsmann said on Monday. "We have to get the players focused, get them all on the same page because it's the last game before we go into World Cup qualifiers, get them inspired, get them positive. It was a pill to swallow, it still is. But you've got to move on. The schedule demands it."

The German manager demands an unequivocal response to adversity. "Show character how to digest a very bitter defeat, a big disappointment," he urged his players. "That's what we want to see."

Yet theirs is a strange sort of assignment. While the Americans' disappointment lingers heavily, they face a regional power that's almost at full strength. But much more acutely than that, they suddenly find themselves preparing for a new World Cup cycle.

A year and change has passed since the last cycle ended in Salvador, Brazil, when Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku finally managed to score on Tim Howard and Belgium knocked the Yanks out of the World Cup. And on November 13, exactly a month from the bout with the Ticos, the third round of CONCACAF qualifying kicks off – the first that the Americans are required to appear in. That's when Saint Vincent and the Grenadines await in St. Louis, one of America's first soccer hotbeds.

And between now and then, there's a great deal to sort out. The national team program is, frankly, reeling – there's just no other way to put it.

The under-23 national team is now a long shot to reach the 2016 Olympics. And at the senior level, the shaky performances have outnumbered the solid ones for some time now. On the whole, it's been difficult to discern any real progress, or even direction. Pressure is mounting on Klinsmann, who is also the program's technical director, while the fans' conviction that he knows what he's doing is shriveling.

Meanwhile, he has an aging team – against Mexico, the starting lineup was 29.36 years old on average and five starters were at least 31, suggesting most of them will have aged out by the 2018 World Cup – and had to send one of his best players home.

"I had a very severe word with Fabian Johnson and I sent him home today, because of the situation that occurred there at the end of the game where he said he couldn't go anymore," Klinsmann said, who faulted the defender for asking for a substitution deep in extra time against Mexico. "He just feared to get possibly an injury but he was not injured in that moment. He got all stiffened up and that's normal. In a situation like that, little things often make a difference."

Klinsmann would have liked to save his third and final sub for goalkeeper Nick Rimando in case the game went to penalties, calling the Real Salt Lake veteran "probably the best penalty blocker in the world."

Looking forward, the need to rebuild around younger players is urgent. Many veteran regulars are still relied upon heavily, and they carried the team on Saturday. For the Costa Rica game, Klinsmann has switched out eight players and called in five new ones.

The players sent back to their clubs – Nick Rimando, DaMarcus Beasley, Kyle Beckerman, Chris Wondolowski, Clint Dempsey, Graham Zusi, Michael Bradley and Matt Besler – are 36, 33, 33, 32, 32, 29, 28 and 28 years old, respectively. Their replacements – Lee Nguyen, Andrew Wooten, Brek Shea, Mix Diskerud and Bill Hamid – are, in order, 29, 26, 25, 25 and 24. But then a lot of those roster changes were down to the needs of the players' MLS teams.

"It is a last chance to see a couple of guys who are kind of on the surface there, wanting to break in," Klinsmann said of Tuesday's game, "before we have to zoom in again and start World Cup qualifying."

That's going to be the trick over the next year or two: to balance performance with development.

"We have to juggle that situation, we have to balance it, we have to give opportunities to younger players," Klinsmann said. "Because only if they get opportunities they can grow. If we keep the door closed they're not growing. And we urgently need younger players because the older ones are not getting any younger. At the same time it's important to have the older ones, the more experienced ones on board. That you can call on them when it's needed."

Klinsmann figures there is plenty of talent in the pipeline but that it's hard to tell how it will cope at the international level. And though will be a while before the Americans have to play the more difficult games, even the early stages of qualifying can be circumstantially challenging and require a veteran presence.

"The most important certainly is, we've got to get the points," said Klinsmann. "World Cup qualifying is all about getting the job done."

"You can bleed certain guys in over the course of time," added Howard. "But there's no sense of looking towards the World Cup before getting there."

Jermaine Jones, the 33-year-old midfielder, argued that it's up to the younger players to usurp his generation as part of a natural process. "I know there's a lot of people talking now, but for me I don't really give a [crap] what people outside [are] talking," he said, characteristically to the point. "I played the World Cup, I was I think the best field player. I will be back. If there's other players better than me, they will push me out."

But until a new generation forces out the last incarnation of the national team, Klinsmann will have to figure out how to live both in the present and the future, while his players do battle with Costa Rica, an old foe from the past.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.

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