Christian Pulisic and Tim Ream are counted on as leaders for the U.S. men's national team. Following the team's surprising 2-1 loss to Jesse Marsch's Canada, both players had a similar message: The U.S. can't afford to show up to matches without intensity.

"We started slow again," Pulisic said, "and yeah, we got punished for it... It's tough to say. It's something that we have to fix, but I really don't have an answer."

The U.S. appeared to struggle under Canada's heavy press and intensity. Canada had 31 tackles to just 12 from the USMNT Saturday, according to Paul Carr of TruMedia Sports. The -19 tackle difference is the worst for the U.S. in 67 games, since a Nov. 2020 friendly 0-0 draw vs Wales.

"I think there's a certain standard that we need to hold ourselves to we haven't been doing that," Ream said. "That's on us as individuals, as players, and it has to come from within us. You can't coach intensity."

Ream was culpable for the U.S.'s second goal allowed as his mistake was pounced on by Jonathan David for Canada's game-winner. He took responsibility for his performance and demanded his teammates step up and represent the U.S. with pride. Despite the team waiting for official confirmation of the hiring of Mauricio Pochettino, Ream emphasized its up to the players to elevate the team out of its current funk.

"You can't coach intensity," he said. "At the end of the day, you have to look in the mirror...Everybody can get to a certain point physically, but can you deal with the ups and downs mentally? And can you bring the intensity to every single training session and every single game? And if you don't, you're going to get punished, and you're going to get results like we did today."

Interim head coach Mikey Varas agreed with that assessment.

"I eat that one [the result] and I think we were too static," Varas said. "The translation of the ideas weren't clear enough, because we shouldn't be static, trying to accelerate play as quickly as you can. On the other side, the mentalities of the players, sorry, they know it. They know. We speak the truth to each other. I love those guys, but they know that mentality of fight and to run, it's a sacrifice...It's a combination between me and them, all of us together."

"First and foremost, what happens is you analyze your own game, and think about your own individual play, and then you think about the about the collective," Ream said about the mood in the locker room. "In terms of anybody coming in and having to go at anybody, it was a lot of introspection, really, more than anything, to understand where we went wrong, the mistakes that we made individually. Mikey did come in and touch on the collective."

The team will continue to await official confirmation of Mauricio Pochettino and will look to rebound when they host New Zealand in Cincinnati on Tuesday.