I had to work today but watched on my phone. Two things really stuck out at me. Although the younger, less experienced (and probably less talented) US team outplayed the Brits, they did two things that I think have held US soccer back that kept them from a huge win.
The first is, they showed an inability to finish. We had several opportunities for likely goals but our forwards sent the ball soaring over the top post instead of keeping the shots low. That is SO American soccer. I saw it thousands of times growing up and you'd expect starters on a World Cup team to be able to give shots like those a chance by not leaning back and sailing them. To have one player miss two likely goals doing it - oof.
The second thing is we seemed content to boot balls away when we were able to defend successfully or intercept/take away balls. One of my select soccer coaches harped on this constantly. His mantra was 'you can't score without the ball, you only get so many possessions, you never give the ball away willingly'. There were a bunch of times today where we regained possession of the ball only to give it right back to England with sloppy kicks, poor passes, or simply booting it away.
I don't want to take away from a great effort. They fought hard. But just couldn't finish those plays.