(sigh) Argentina 4, United States 1 in the Copa America. The United States certainly didn’t deserve to win, didn’t even deserve to draw, but 4-1 doesn’t reflect the game. Argentina had six or so clear-cut chances and took four of them. The United States had virtually none but did manage to win a penalty in the opening 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, 95% of the planet will not know (or not care) that this is far from the full-strength US team that held up for the most part against the best side Argentina could put out. They kept calling it the United States’ “C Team” on GolTV and that’s about right. No Donovan, Beasley, or Dempsey on the roster says it all. Other scatter shot thoughts.

* Eddie Johnson needs to drive at defenders more often. He looks too casual out there, and is most dangerous when he puts the pedal down. Taylor Twellman more often than not looks lost at this level; Jonathan Bornstein and Benny Feilhaber do not, although BF did not have a great game tonight.

* For all the fans singing Justin Mapp’s praises, he could not beat 33-year-old Javier Zanetti all night long. Eddie Gavin and Hercules Gomez did absolutely nothing off the bench to make me believe they should be on the national team; the jury is still out on Beckerman, but he should be aware the jury is not biased in his favor.

* I trust the defensive pairing of Demerit and Conrad more than Bocanegra and Onyewu. Kasey Keller has clearly lost a step in goal. He made one great save but did not otherwise improve on his shaky Gold Cup performance. Marvell Wynne, besides have a name fit for a superhero’s alter ego, did a good enough job tonight; which means it’s a friggin’ awesome job against one of the world’s best teams on his international debut.

Overall, it’s a strange feeling to be uplifted after being on the wrong end of a 4-1 scoreline. Ray Hudson was singing the praises of this US team in the dying minutes of the game and I had to agree. For someone who has followed the US Natl Team religiously for almost twenty years, it’s amazing to see our country throw together such a young team and watch them play good football against a world giant. Even with this scab squad, they played the ball up the field, they didn’t pack the defense for 90 minutes, they didn’t rely on long punts for the attack.

Next match is against Paraguay on Tuesday. They put five past Colombia, so it should be a cracker.