USA EH-OKAY

I'm curious to hear the other back seat drivers' opinion on the USA/Brazil Confederations cup championship. Here's mine. While I am never happy with losing (even though its all i know as a cleveland native), I am happy with the USA's overall performance. As Gutsy put it, "we were playing with the house's money."
The USA played out of their minds, and way above their potential against Spain and in the first half of the Brazil game. Watching the first half, was probably the most exciting half of US soccer i've seen since the 2002 world cup. But then, reality set it. It showed me that unless we are hitting on all cylinders, we can't compete with a Brazil, Italy, or Mexico, etc.
When we are just playing okay, or good, we won't beat those teams. We have to play at 100% of our potential just to be in the same realm as those guys. I think it just comes down to the fact that we are less talented, but have a slight potential to be as good of a team as them.
It was obvious in the second half of that game, that the balloon had burst, and the US team was back to the same spot as when they lost to Brazil a week earlier.
What are your thoughts?
Laz