This was not quite the start to Toulon Tournament coach Andi Herzog and the U.S. U23 Men’s National Team had in mind.

Opening the tournament in the sun-splashed South of France, the U.S. was throttled 3-1 by their French hosts on Wednesday in the first group match for both teams. The tournament is a round robin format through the group phase, with each of the two group winners facing each other for the championship. Brazil won it last year but isn’t taking part in 2015, meaning there will be a new champ next month.

That could still conceivably be the U.S., but Wednesday made that task considerably more difficult. The U.S. has to follow up next with a match against a loaded Netherlands squad that beat Costa Rica 3-2 in the opener. The Americans will be underdogs in that match, too.

Three salient points from Wednesday’s match.

Age no substitute for skill

After a woeful first half (the teams only played halves of 40 minutes), the U.S. looked more coherent over the final 40 minutes, which yielded a well-taken Jordan Morris goal. Indeed, Morris was one of the best players on the field despite his relatively few touches. But look closer at the teams themselves and a worrying trend emerges: France essentially fielded a U20 team with three overage players. And all three of those were 21. The U.S. trotted out a true U23 team with 10 players born in 1993. France had zero, and all but three were 1995s.

That the U.S. looked so tremendously overmatched against what essentially amounted to a second-choice French U20 team was disconcerting. Even more concerning was that the U.S. didn’t appear to have any sizable physical advantage despite the age gap. Fullbacks Boyd Okwunu and Juan Ocegueda, the latter of whom is a U20 World Cup veteran, were routinely overrun on the flanks. Center back Will Packwood looked utterly lost at times. And France’s talented attacking midfielder Fares Bahlouli roamed the truck-sized gaps in the midfield and back line with impunity.

The solace the U.S. can take from this match is that the French YNT system at present is arguably as well-stocked as any in the world. Theoretically this team could’ve been made up entirely of players who won the U20 World Cup two years ago, which would’ve included Paul Pogba, currently one of the world’s best midfielders.

But it wasn’t. This was a second-choice team that the U.S. should’ve dealt with better in the first half. France scored all three of its goals in the opening 22 minutes, and the U.S. hardly looked like it even deserved to be on the field. Credit to the team for buckling up its chin strap in the second half, but they should’ve been considerably better considerably sooner.

U.S. midfield breaks apart

The Americans’ biggest problem was generating possession through the central portion of the field. The formation started off as a 4-3-3 and gradually floated into more of a 4-5-1 with Morris alone up top and Liverpool man Marc Pelosi swapping raiding duties with Santos Laguna’s Benji Joya. Behind them, Maryland’s Dan Metzer sat in front of the back line as the holder. Pelosi wore the 10 and Joya wore the 8, but neither played into the roles on the shirt. Ultimately, both were swiftly lost in the flow of the match.

To be fair to Joya, he did perk up a bit in the second half as he finally looked to play more vertically. But by then the U.S. already trailed by three goals and the match was over. In the first half he looked disinterested and disconnected with the rest of the midfield, and as for Pelosi, this must have been one of the worst performances of his career. His free kicks were miles off the mark, he provided nothing to the attack, he moodily lashed out at a few meek French challenges and wasn’t switched on in transition.

We’ve seen so little of Pelosi since his tragic leg break that this performance was particularly ominous. This may well have been an anomaly, and it almost certainly won’t cause Herzog to sit him the rest of the tournament. Nor should he. But if this isn’t an anomaly and it’s simply where Pelosi is as a player right now, it’s fair to say his national team career is teetering on the brink. Playing like this, he’s not good enough to receive another call-up until he proves himself somewhere on a first team.

Metzger wasn’t much better. It was his out-of-touch giveaway in the U.S. half that led to France’s first, and his day only slid further and further downhill as the first half progressed. The problem was, in part, his lack of connection with the back line and Joya/Pelosi in front of him. Too often he’d dump possession back to the center backs and then disappear higher upfield, forcing them to hoof it long for turnovers. As a result, the defensive midfield was left gaping for France’s lightning-quick forwards and midfielders to exploit.

Julian Green’s laggardly day

There’s no question the most anticipated performance on the day from a U.S. fan’s perspective was that of Julian Green. For one, his club season in Germany was a train wreck. After being loaned to Hamburg by Bayern Munich, the coach that acquired him was fired less than a month into the season, and his replacement wasn’t keen on Green. The U.S. prospect refused another loan to 1860 Munich, was left on the Hamburg reserve team for the rest of the season and played 203 minutes first team minutes.

Perhaps that’s why Green looked so anonymous for most of his stint. At one point during the first half, Joya found a rare patch of daylight just outside the French box and looked for a simple overlap from Green. But Green, who’s work ethic left something to be desired, simply stood in place. Joya hurriedly gestured for Green to run into the open area, which he did, but by then French right back Raphael Diarra, one of AS Monaco’s top prospects, had already closed down the space.

That was a frequent refrain on the day. Diarra more or less had Green in his pocket, marking him off the wing and forcing him into the dead space in the middle of the American midfield. Green showed some of the traits that’ve made him so coveted - good ball control, namely - but he never looked hooked in to what was happening beyond him. Indeed, he spent too much time dancing and not enough time with his head up.

Green is a relative newcomer to this side, and he certainly wasn’t the only player who struggled. Every one of them did except for the starved-for-service Morris, in some respect, even if the second half was more cohesive as France gradually leaned off the accelerator. But the U.S. needs considerably better performances from everyone in this tournament to keep from being overrun again at every position on the field.

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