The following are quotes from US national team players Landon Donovan, Michael Bradley, Carlos Bocanegra and Tim Howard after the 2-1 World Cup qualifying loss to Mexico.
U.S. Men's National Team midfielder Landon DonovanOn the game: "I thought we did a pretty good job of keeping things under control. We know on this field and in these circumstances, they're always going to have a lot of the ball, but we didn't feel like they were overly dangerous. We did a good job starting the game well and scoring, and then they made one play at the end that made the difference."
On Mexico's first goal: "[Castro] hits an absolute dream goal. You give that guy a thousand shots like that, he's not going to score that goal. It was a little unfortunate for us that he scores that goal, and then maybe at the end they get a little lucky bounce in the box. It's frustrating."
On playing in Estadio Azteca: "It's hard to play here. It wears you out. It's just exhausting."
On his emotions on the match: "I said this week that I didn't want people to get carried away. This wasn't a live or die game for us; it was for them. Now, it puts us in a little bit more of a difficult position, but our next game is home with El Salvador, which we expect to win, and away to Trinidad, which we expect to win. We still feel if we win those two games, we're going to qualify."
On the USA's goal: "It was good. We played well in opening part of the game and we deserved it, it was a good goal. After that, they put a lot of pressure on us and scored a wonder goal, so it's unfortunate that we couldn't get to halftime with the lead."
U.S. Men's National Team midfielder Michael BradleyOn the difficulty of playing Mexico: "Obviously it's difficult, but you know that coming in, so it's not anything that you're not ready for. I thought for the most part we did a good job handling the game. Went up 1-0, unfortunately we let them back into the game a little too quickly. In the second half, I thought they had the ball a lot, but we had a pretty good grip on things."
On the entire qualifying campaign: "You know coming in that these 10 games are going to be difficult games and you're going to half to play hard for all 10 to be in the World Cup. It's not anything we didn't expect, and now in a few weeks we'll get ready for two more difficult games that are very important."
U.S. Men's National Team defender and captain Carlos BocanegraOn what positives they can take from the match: "It was good. I thought we had a really good game plan. We played well and guys worked hard. I think we came out and we started strong, which was a good thing. We need to have better concentration levels when the ball turns over and possess it better ourselves, and better concentration at the end of the game."
U.S. Men's National Team goalkeeper Tim HowardOn the match: "Mexico is a good team, particularly at home and they made it difficult for us. It didn't seem to go our way, it's unfortunate."
On whether altitude and environment factors were part of the loss: "No, I don't think any thing was a factor. Obviously, the altitude is never easy, but I thought we did very well to prepare. We got beaten by a very good team today."
