Three Things: The good vibes are gone as USMNT catch a beating from Portugal

The US had spent last autumn looking like they'd figured things out. After a spring and summer of discontent head coach Mauricio Pochettino had brought in a bunch of new players and, it seemed, instilled a new will to compete. He'd also introduced new tactical concepts. To the surprise of many, his team of try-hards had immediately picked them up and started to cook.

That into a five-game unbeaten run, all against teams that'll be in the World Cup this summer. South Korea? Ecuador? Australia? Paraguay? Check, check, check, check.

And those were just the warm-ups. The fifth game – the final one of that run – produced a record 5-1 win over mighty Uruguay. There's arguably never been a better friendly win in USMNT history, and man did that feed the fanbase over the past four months.

All it took was 180 minutes and we're starving again. On Saturday it was an embarrassing 5-2 loss to Belgium. On Tuesday, it was a less embarrassing but still humbling 2-0 against Portugal.

The good vibes are gone, and the clock is ticking. Bear in mind it's only a pair of friendlies, and no one should ever read too much into those.

But you can't read nothing, either. And it just wasn't great.

Let's dive in:

US upped the intensity

I cut a few clips from the Belgium loss illustrating how bad the US were at closing down the opposing backline – the lack of clarity, commitment and urgency on display for most of the game. It was, I thought, pretty glaring, and was the primary reason poor Tim Weah got locked into the torture chamber with Jérémy Doku: