Soccer: Tim Howard made the long walk from the United States locker room to the departing team bus fuming over his team's Gold Cup final loss to Mexico and their second rate status on home soil. Once Mexico had recovered from falling two goals behind early on to claim a 4-2 victory, wild celebrations broke out at the Rose Bowl Stadium that reaffirmed the Americans' feeling that they were visitors in their own home.

"I think it was a . . . disgrace that the entire post match ceremony was in Spanish," Howard said. "You bet your ass, if we were in Mexico City the ceremony would not be all in English. Concacaf should be ashamed of themselves."

The US were swallowed up by the sea of green and red worn by the Mexican fans that made up the passionate crowd of 93,420. But the Americans did not lose the match because of crowd support, they lost it because Mexico proved to be the better, more dynamic side for the second Gold Cup final in a row.

The US will take away a few positives from the tournament, including the continued progression in Bob Bradley's new possession oriented focus. But in the end, the Americans confirmed what they already knew before being exposed by Mexico - there is a lot of work to be done to close the gap.

"We have to take it up another level," said Landon Donovan. "In these games we want to even things out a little more and not have them (Mexico) have the possession the whole time. They showed that they're the team to beat right now. We have to go catch them."

The United States raced to a 2-0 lead within 23 minutes thanks to goals from Michael Bradley and Donovan. But Mexico fought back to go in level at the break through strikes from Pablo Barrera and Andres Guardado. Barrera added his second to give Mexico a 3-2 lead, five minutes into the second half.

The victorywas sealed in style with a superb chip from the outstanding Giovani dos Santos. The win gave Mexico their sixth Gold Cup title and ensured they will represent the region in the Confederations Cup in Brazil in 2013.