USA coach Bruce Arena thought his side never recovered from their poor start as they crashed to a 3-0 defeat to the Czech Republic in their opening Group E encounter.

Jan Koller headed an early goal for the impressive Czech side and they went on to stroll to victory thanks to two further strikes by Tomas Rosicky.

A downcast Arena said after the match: "It was certainly a very poor start to the game, down a goal in the first five minutes of the game against a team like the Czech Republic.

"They actually defend very well and at that point were very comfortable in sitting back and absorbing any kind of pressure and countering us.

"I'm very disappointed in our start. I'm very disappointed in the performance of a number of our players over 90 minutes. The better team won today. Give them credit.

"They punished us for every mistake we made. At 1-0 we had a chance, Claudio (Reyna) hits the post, they come back and get an absolutely great goal by (Tomas) Rosicky.

"In the first half I thought we played OK, but we go down two goals and we're chasing the game and to chase the game against a team of that quality is very difficult."