The USA, in the end, exactly met everyone’s expectations – through to the knockout round and no further. The favorable way the bracket set up, and the wave of emotion following the way the Americans qualified, had us hopeful that better things were possible. In the end, though, this was exactly the team we knew we had.

Throughout qualifying, the USA seemed determined to play from behind. Yet again, they went behind early, allowing a sixth-minute strike by Ghana. We’ve seen a team with a propensity for disastrous defensive errors – and Ricardo Clark and Jay DeMerit combined on that first goal to turn nothing into something for Ghana, and DeMerit and Carlos Bocanegra allowed a goal early in extra time in the same way. Both of Ghana’s goals came out of nothing, and really, those were the only two chances the Africans had. As it so often has, the game came down to whether Tim Howard could bail out his defenders – and the keeper was not at his best on Saturday.

We knew those defensive flaws were there. We knew that the USA had never found someone to play next to Michael Bradley in midfield; Clark lost the ball that led to the first goal, picked up a stupid yellow card two minutes later, and was substituted half an hour into the match, with coach Bob Bradley basically admitting he’d made a mistake starting Clark. Maurice Edu was the best in this tournament in that midfield role, but he’d hardly made an impression in qualifying, any more than Jose Torres or Sasha Kljestan or Benny Feilhaber or anyone else the USA tried there.

Up front, too, the Americans never really found someone to partner Jozy Altidore, who was good as a target man, but unable to find the back of the net. All three players who did score – Bradley, Clint Dempsey, and Landon Donovan – scored from midfield. Robbie Findley did a lot of running but hardly had a sniff of goal; Edson Buddle and Herculez Gomez did very little when coming on late.

All these problems we knew – but we still got our hopes up. After Wednesday, anything seemed possible.

And now, the hardest part – waiting four more years for another shot. Donovan, the best player America has ever produced, will be 32 years old in 2014; Howard, the first-choice goalkeeper, will be 35. Much of the rest of the current team – with the notable exceptions of Bradley and Altidore – will be into their thirties by the time the next World Cup rolls around. A new batch of players will need to step up, by then. Someone will need to score besides Dempsey and Donovan. Someone will need to plug the holes.

We knew that this day was probably coming. We had hoped it wouldn’t come quite so soon. And now, we wait for Brazil, four years from now, for another shot.