In the aftermath of a loss away to Spain, US coach Bob Bradley began his press conference by touching on the good points from the 1-0 defeat.

"In certain areas, there was improvement (from the England game)", he said. "In the first half, we passed the ball better. In the second half, I thought that we had a very good chance early in the half, then lost a bit of energy and Spain was able to capitalize."

Talking of the zapped US batteries as the game wore on, he said, "I thought we stopped moving to support each other when we had the ball."

"We could not keep the ball, and Fabregas and Xavi did a good job of finding some little gaps between our midfield and defense. Spain is a very good passing team and they were able at that point to take advantage of that."

Praising his defense at the same time as his opponents, Bradley added, "Technically very good, their ability to move the ball around is among the best in the world, but they did not create that many chances, so from their end that would be the most glaring thing that they would look at. All of our organization was quite good, particularly in the first half."

"Spain are a great side, but we made a great start and the first half was even," US midfielder Maurice Edu told American Soccer Daily.

"We created some pretty good chances which we were unfortunate enough not to capitalize on. In the second half, we started off pretty well again, but Spain are a great possession side who know how to keep the ball, so they wore us down and took the good chance they got."

"We were chasing it," the Toronto FC midfielder went on, "But I think we did well to keep our shape and we defended well for the most part."

Josh Wolff concurred with his colleague. "I think we did a good job for about seventy minutes," he told ASD, "(We) got numbers behind the ball when they attacked, but we have to look at what we did wrong to lose this game."

"We need to work on our set pieces, our counters and turnarounds. We had a couple of chances and on another night we would have taken them. But they were up to the challenge at the other end."

Frankie Hejduk however took more of a critical eye to the game. "They were the better team," he told ASD. "They came out and pressured us well and played how they want to play. We tried to keep it close, but they scored a good goal and hats off to them. But we have to do better."

Looking forward to Sunday's Argentina friendly, the Columbus veteran added, "There is something to build on because we have just had tough games away from home against some of the best teams in the world, so it is only going to make us better in the end."

On Thursday morning, Spain's famous soccer daily Marca called it 'A game to forget and a goal to remember', while rival publication AS headlined their post-mortem 'A wonder goal but a lot of worries'.

Jose Felix Diaz in Marca was full of praise for the 'iron North American defensive system' in the first 45 minutes, which meant 'no (Spanish) player turned on the gas or tried to make a run which could trouble the US defense'.

Alfredo Relano in AS called the States 'a well-drilled and solid team but lacking sparkle', while colleague Juanma Trueba thought, "The US team is no box of delights, but they have their moments. What they lack in stunning talent they make up for with neat organization. Every time they got the ball, they played direct, which was enough to keep us on our heels."

AS scribe Maldini said the US were 'a modest but noble team, who mostly played cleanly and tried to attack when they could'. He praised Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey and Eddie Johnson for their contributions, but noted they were up against quality opposition.

"Bradley is a fairly complete central midfielder," he said, adding that 'Onyewu had a very good game' and that 'Freddy Adu did some nice little things once more'.

"The North Americans would not have had to have worked much harder to have got a result, so slow were Spain," Maldini continued, concluding it was 'another respectable scoreline for a (US) team looking to improve through games like this'.

Spain coach Luis Aragones' criticisms of his own team, therefore, should be taken somewhat as compliments to the US for upsetting superior opponents.

"We didn't find much rhythm in the first half and Torres was too isolated," he told journalists post-match. "I did not like that."