Posted by James Cranford

The USMNT is still in the embryotic stage of the new regime under Jurgen Klinsmann. However, many of the same issues revolve around our national team, and many new changes can be seen.

The United States took on Costa Rica at the Home Depot Center on Friday night in front of a crowd of 15,798 and ultimately lost the match 1-0 on a goal from Rodney Wallace. The U.S. fell to 8-2-2 at the HDC all time.

The scoreline may not depict how the game actually finished because the US had the majority of possession throughout much of the game, only lacking the final ball in the final third of the pitch. The main concern remains in the U.S. team with a lack of goals. Jozy Altidore has been on form for his new club team, AZ Alkmaar, and looked much better in front of goal.

The final ball from either Brek Shea or Robbie Rogers seemed to fail with a cross that was poor or easily defended by the Costa Rican defense. When the final ball did make it to an on-rushing Landon Donovan on six minutes, the U.S. all time leading scorer shot wide.

Jurgen Klinsmann commented on the final push in front of goal after the game, "we need to be more determined...a tick more nastiness." That nastiness in front of goal is still yet to be seen.

The U.S. did, however, play a high pressure, high intensity game. Jose Torres in particular did a fantastic job of winning balls back in midfield and regaining possession. The high pressure style of game is what Klinsmann is looking for in his U.S. side.

"20, 30, 40, 60 minutes they don't have it anymore, a process we must learn." This process is fighting through the down time in games and learning how to play through them. Most notably, Brek Shea looked very tired after playing three days earlier for FC Dallas in the US Open Cup.

The new regime has taken over the USMNT but the results still look the same. When will we see the honeymoon period over Klinsmann end and the results starting to matter? Losing to Costa Rica at home used to be unacceptable. Now we let it slide because we all have the coach we want.

The U.S. faces a tough friendly match in Belgium on Tuesday. A game in which will be a true test to see how the U.S. can gel together playing their new high tempo, high pressure game.