Clint Dempsey scored the only goal as the USA defeated Italy 1-0 in Genoa in an international friendly on Wednesday night.

The Fulham ace fired home in the 55th minute and he was delighted to have helped his country to a strong victory over one of the world's best teams which at times required plenty of toil.

"It's just a confidence builder," he told ussoccer.com.

"We're just trying to move in the right direction and trying to get as sharp as we can for the summer and the World Cup qualifying games because the goal is to qualify for the World Cup.

"It's important to come to places like this and play big teams on their own soil and get results. At times it wasn't pretty but we grounded out the result tonight."

And Dempsey said it was nice to work with Jozy Altidore, who supplied the goal, whilst explaining his forward defensive role on Italy star Andrea Pirlo.

"Anytime I get to attack, it's a role that I enjoy," he added. "I just tried to play off him (Altidore) as much as I could, at the same when we had possession, trying to tucking back, getting into those channels, into those spaces for Michael [Bradley] and Mo [Edu] to find me.

"But also defensively, to shadow [Andrea] Pirlo because every time he got on the ball, he was just pinging [shots] for fun, finding his men. I just tried to frustrate him a little bit because he's a great player. At times I would do that and at times I wasn't. It was a little bit of a workout tonight but we got the result."

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