U.S. players stress 'communication' at Gold Cup: 'This is our group right now'

United States men’s national team players have been having small group conversations this week following Tuesday’s alarming 4-0 defeat to Switzerland. With the Gold Cup fast approaching – the USMNT’s first match is Sunday against Trinidad and Tobago (6 p.m. ET on FOX) before finishing group play vs. Saudi Arabia and Haiti – the squad's more experienced players are trying to manifest confidence in the younger ones in order to create some kind of pre-tournament spark.

"It’s one of those [games] that you look at, you analyze it, and you recognize it wasn’t good enough," veteran defender Tim Ream told reporters Friday afternoon. "But you can take so many different learning experiences from it. What is it going to take to get to that level for a lot of these guys? And, what do you have to do day in and day out to be able to put those things right?

"As hard as it is in that immediate moment after and how terrible it feels to lose the way we did and play the way we did, it’s something that you just have to take on board and understand what it takes to get to that level and compete at that level."

The USMNT hoped to gain momentum before the Gold Cup with two send-off matches against quality opponents last week. While the team was able to take positives out of the first match, a 2-1 loss to Türkiye, the Swiss sliced up a youthful U.S. side and scored four goals in the first 36 minutes of the match. The result created an overwhelming amount of concern and criticism, especially given that a World Cup on home soil is now less than 365 days away.

While Ream, 37, hasn’t experienced this exact kind of situation in his career, he has endured plenty of highs and lows mixed with an abundance of outside negativity. He can impart some