My subconscious must have wanted to see this game. It began at 5 a.m. UAE time, and normally I’m in a coma about then, about four hours from stirring … but I bolted up at about 5:45, turned on our squirrely TV, saw the Yanks walking off for halftime … and I followed it to the bitter end.

Mexico won, of course, and I called it yesterday, and by the time I had seen the first-half highlights on the Al Jazeera feed I had no doubt which team was the more dangerous.

The creepy part of this?

Mexico was more than 4-2 better. More like 4-0 better.

The U.S. team, which I have not seen much at all since the World Cup, is in a weird place. Its best players are all pushing 30 (or have left it behind), it hasn’t really taken in many guys you could describe as stars in the making, and it has particular problems in the back four, which historically has been a U.S. strength.

Bob Bradley fielded an odd, neither/nor team, not really good for attacking but also not good for sitting back, absorbing pressure and scoring on the counter — which is how Bruce Arena rolled for eight years running the U.S., back when the Yanks began beating Mexico regularly.

Jozy Altidore was out with a hammy, not that he’s done great stuff with the national team, but without him Bradley decided to leave Landon Donovan alone at the top of the offense, which Bradley himself had realized was a bad idea, when he took over the team four years ago — he had promptly moved Landon to the right side of midfield, which proved to be the best place for him. But I guess someone had to play up there …

Clint Dempsey and Freddy Adu (!) were the attacking mids, Michael Bradley and Jermaine Jones (our latest German-American import) were the holding mids and the back line was (from left to right) Eric Lichaj, Carlos Bocanegra, Clarence Goodson and Steve Cherundolo — two of whom have played too many big games (Bocanegra and Cherundolo) and two of whom (Lichaj and Goodson) have not played enough.

And back in goal, the vaguely unsatisfying Tim Howard, who never seems to play as well for the U.S. as he does for his English club, Everton.

The U.S. was further compromised when Cherundolo was hurt in the 11th minute, and Bradley pere reacted by sending on out-of-form Jonathan Bornstein on the left and sending Lichaj over to the right.

The many and varied issues this group of 11 has were papered over almost spectacularly for 23 minutes. Bradley fils scored on a header from an Adu corner, and Dempsey made a nice pass to Donovan on a diagonal run, and the leading scorer in U.S. history banged it inside the post with his left foot.

2-0 U.S.

Two thoughts here.

1. Mexico historically has collapsed when it gets behind. You could look it up. This is not a country which plays well from behind. El Tri panics when it gets down one and quits when it gets down two. That has been the pattern for more than a decade.

2. This is where the U.S. typically would have packed in the defense, kept nine field players in front of the ball and come forward only in the counter-attack and with never more than three or four guys.

Neither 1 nor 2 happened, and that could indicate a sea change in this rivalry.

What happened was … the U.S. continued to attack, indicating that Bradley had an inkling of how shaky his defense was and knew that two goals probably would not be enough.

Mexico quickly got two back, with some particularly sloppy defending on the second, when Lichaj and Howard collided in front of goal and Andres Guardado tapped it in to tie.

The second half was pretty much all Mexico, which made sense considering that El Tri has three formidable attacking players in Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, Giovani Dos Santos and Pablo Barrera (who are owned by Manchester United, Tottenham and West Ham, respectively). The U.S. back four couldn’t cover those guys with a tarp, and Mexico was a threat to score at any minute.

Barrera knocked in the go-ahead goal, and the fourth was pretty much a U.S. embarrassment. Chicharito was holding the ball in the corner, just cuz he could … and eventually Bocanegra took it away, but Mexico had so many guys forward that Boca had no clear target for a clearing pass, and he rolled it weakly toward the middle of the field, and Mexico picked it up near the top of the area.

One pass took it to Dos Santos, who ran a circle into and through the box, luring out Howard, who whiffed on his dive for the ball, then crawled after him somewhat pathetically, swiping feebly, before getting up and retreating to goal, too late.

Dos Santos, after his run through half the U.S. team, chipped the ball into the upper-left corner of the goal, over the head of Lichaj, who was at the far post, and that was that.

Bradley fils has some work ahead of him. For sure. He needs to find a real forward, and if not Altidore perhaps he should lure Brian McBride out of retirment. A real target guy who can hold it against strong defenders. Do we have any of those? Well, actually … no. We haven’t produced a real scorer since Donovan and Dempsey a decade ago.

Landon, too, suddenly no longer looks like a young man, probably because he isn’t. He is 30 in March, and he has that sort of square, solid look of a 30-year-old man, and not the light, whippet-y look of a soccer star in his prime. He certainly can still do some damage, and right through 2014, I’m thinking, but he needs to be over on the right, not up top where he can get lost.

Dempsey also is also on the back side of his career, though he certainly deserves to start and is savvy enough to hang on through 2014.

Adu might be the new Great Hope. The former Next Great Yank was playing in MLS at, what, age 16 — at least according to that Ghana birth certificate — then went to Europe and generally stunk it up for about five years, knocking around the continent and not playing. But if he’s finally “getting it” at (in theory) age 22, that could be a huge help. A fast, active scoring threat in the middle of the park.

Stuart Holden might be helpful, too, if his play at Bolton is any indication, but he seems to be hurt whenever the U.S. has an international tournament, and it’s not really clear how he would fit in. Just not enough evidence.

Michael Bradley played poorly, even taking the goal into account, and since his exile from M’Gladbach he hasn’t played much. He needs a team to stay sharp, especially at age 24. Jones may come around, but he hasn’t yet; it isn’t clear that he is better than Maurice Edu, and Mo isn’t very good. (At least Ricardo Clark is no longer in the player pool.)

The back four is the real scary area. This is the spot where the U.S. traditionally has talent stacked up, but now they can’t find enough competent guys for a rubber of bridge. Boca must play inside, but he can’t be expected to run with anyone. The other inside guy is anyone’s guess. Oguchi Onyewu doesn’t seem to have recovered from that blown knee in the 2009 Cup qualifying match. Goodson is a mediocrity. This Tim Ream guy might be useful, but he’s young. Is Jay DeMerit worthy of another look?

The situation on the outside is more dire. Cherundolo is injury-prone and 32, which are related concepts. The old guard is Bornstein, who was turned inside out by Mexico, and Jonathan Spector, who is flaky, and the the young guys are Lichaj, who looked out of his depth throughout, and Michael Parkhurst and maybe A.J. DeLaGarza.

The youth player of the year in U.S. Soccer for most of the past 10 years has been a defender or a keeper, and Lichaj and Goodson are better than any of them? Apparently so.

We could feel better about this team if its two best players (Donovan, Dempsey) didn’t look almost irreplaceable, and if anyone under the age of 25 looked like a real player on the rise.

Luckily for the Yanks, it’s three years before the next World Cup, and maybe things will have been sorted out by then. That 4-2 loss to Mexico was flattering to the Yanks, and that is downright alarming, at this moment in time.

And a word on the behavior of Mexico fans, who made up maybe 80,000 of the 93,000 people in the Rose Bowl. They were appalling rude. I mean, I get the “you treat our immigrants badly” thing, but an international soccer match ought to have a certain basic element of decorum, and standing there quietly while the other team’s national anthem is played is one of them. Mexico’s fans were an embarrassment to themselves and what is, clearly, the nation they consider “home” — Mexico.

Not that anything they did, the cursing and booing and contempt for the American flag, was a surprise. That’s how they roll. So.

I had a bit of trouble catching up on the rest of my sleep. I kept seeing Dos Santos running past U.S. defenders …