The search for buzz words or catch phrases to summarize Wednesday's 2-0 defeat of the U.S. Men's National Team by England brings a few finalists.

"Disappointing" certainly applies to Wednesday's proceedings in a vacuum.

"We're not there yet" might fit for those more interested in the big picture.

"Nothing happening" may work in terms of aesthetic analysis.

However you choose to label it, the U.S. team fell way short of hoped-for levels in the contest, played at London's historic Wembley Stadium. The team created very little offense for most of the match and thus put too much pressure on its own midfield to hold the ball, and subsequently on its back line to defend.

The blame can go all around for this one. It's fair to note that England, chronically overrated by its own press, fielded a pretty impressive starting 11 in this game. When you look at the professional pedigree of the England players vs. most of the Americans, our boys' experience didn't stack up too well. But this was true when the U.S. played Italy to a draw in the 2006 World Cup, gave Germany everything it wanted in the 2002 World Cup quarterfinal and in any number of friendlies where we've earned good results. So we won't fall into the old trap of thinking we're just incapable of achieving good results against the world heavyweights. That would be self-fulfilling apocalyptic prophecy.

The U.S. seemed to have some fairly robust attacking options, with DaMarcus Beasley and Clint Dempsey on the wings, Eddie Johnson and Josh Wolff at striker and Eredivisie goal-scoring machine Michael Bradley pushing up in central midfield. But with the striker play especially anemic, there wasn't a lot in the way of scoring chances coming from this group. Landon Donovan missed the match with a groin injury it says something about at least his potentially dangerous quality that he kept coming to mind as the U.S. offense sputtered.

Late in the match the U.S. generated its best scoring chances and these seemed to come largely through Bradley and substitutes Freddy Adu and Eddie Lewis. Adu was lively, and while he miscued on a couple of final balls, he did create things and I would like to see him from the beginning next week when the U.S. plays at Spain.

Lewis gets longer in the tooth all the time and is coming off a tough season with Derby County, the lowest point-getter in English Premiership history, but he reminded that he is one of the better, if not the best, providers of service from the flanks in American soccer. He even skinned his marker to create the single-best U.S. chance, a driven ball that England goalkeeper David James did well to push away from the far corner of the goal.

Beasley and especially Dempsey and Johnson have to raise their level of creativity and vitality for the U.S. side. I don't know what Wolff's status is with the team (he's out of contract for his German club 1860 Munich), but skepticism toward his long term national team plans has to be high.

Sorry to say this but, any chance Brian McBride could return to the national team fold?

Bradley and Clark may still be the central midfield pairing of choice, but I'd like to see this duo stamp their impression on a game with a little more authority.

I'm of 2 minds on the back line. I can think of at least one instance where each U.S. defender made a significant error (although as I said they were put under duress in many ways by the players in front of them). I can also cite 3 of the 4 starters with having shown some positives. Carlos Bocanegra was combative and did the vital work of preventing scoring chances on a number of occasions, but also gave away some unnecessary free kicks and was shaky in distribution at times. Oguchi Onyewu showed in some ways a real maturity in the back, but was at least partly responsible on the 2^nd England goal due to ball-watching. Heath Pearce's may have been the most promising U.S. performance among the starters, but he too may have been caught out of position on the 2^nd England goal. Steve Cherundolo was not so great and Frankie Hedjuk just ok at right back.

Goalkeepers Tim Howard and Brad Guzan acquitted themselves well enough on the day. Maurice Edu and Nate Jaqua were not on long enough to really notice.

The best way to ultimately judge this performance is in comparison to next week's match at Spain and the following contest vs. Argentina.

Let's look for more creativity and effectiveness in the attack. If not, we may need to review the catch phrases and buzz words at the top of this article, with the idea of applying to the entire team's chances, not at qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, but in making an impact there.

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