Landon Donovan said it was vital for the USA national team to respond positively from their CONCACAF Gold Cup loss to Panama on the weekend.
The tournament co-favourites dropped points to the 67th-ranked Panamanians on Saturday but were able to avert any disaster by scoring a 1-0 victory over Guadeloupe on Tuesday to qualify for the knockout phase.
Donovan was delighted the US team showed enough character to bounce back and is now setting his sights on their quarter-final clash with Jamaica in Washington on Sunday.
"We were all disappointed on how we played," Donovan said. "We wanted to make sure we wanted to be better tonight, starting with our attitude and our attitude was better.
"This is a game we should have won probably 3-0 or 4-0. The reality is that we won. That's all that matters. If we won 1-0 or 5-0, we're playing Jamaica. We've got three days of training to get better."