Bob Bradley believes the USA team needs to improve further following their elimination from the 2010 World Cup.

Team USA went down 2-1 to sole African nation Ghana in extra-time on Saturday night and already Bradley has started to dissect his team's performance in their four matches in South Africa.

"Here's how I would assess it: I'm not one to try to pat ourselves on the back, I have simple ways of looking at things," Bradley said.

"When you start this cycle, you try to establish over the four years' time-the work, the qualification, the training-you want to make sure that when you get to the World Cup, you're ready. You're ready when the spotlight comes on to play, to go for it. So the spotlight comes on in this World Cup four times 90 minutes. In those moments, in terms of us being a team and in all ways, from our mentality to the tactical side to the technical side, I certainly feel that part was very good.

"But you also still recognize, as you look at all of that, the areas that when you put it on the most difficult scale, still need to improve. That will always get put to the test. There are things there that when you look from the inside, we know the group responded well and there's a lot they can feel very good about and yet at the same time there's a pretty empty feeling right now because coming out of the first round we felt there was a real chance of doing something bigger.

"I think we responded well in each case in those first three games, I think we felt we were improving game by game, and the opportunity to take that further was there. We talked about that, but we also talked about how that had to be done 90 minutes at a time. At the end of it all, that leaves us a little bit empty."