HAMBURG, Germany, June 13 - U.S. coach Bruce Arena said on Tuesday he had no regrets about criticising individual players after his team's 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic in their Group E World Cup opener.

"It (the evaluation) was accurate," he said. "The reason we lost the game was that their players played better than our players. Individually, they were better and won most of the match-ups on the field."

Following the loss, Arena uncharacteristically criticised individual players -- especially midfielders Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley -- for their performance.

Arena said he had met the starting team as a group since the game, but had not had too many individual discussions. He said that he had not met with Beasley and did not yield on his public criticism of the PSV Eindhoven midfielder.

"If he (Beasley) is any kind of a player or a man," said Arena, "he understands that (criticism). If he doesn't, he's not going to be in a position to help us in games two or three either."

The U.S. face Italy on Saturday in Kaiserslautern knowing that a loss would end their hopes of progressing to the knockout stage of the tournament.

"The result is not going to go away," Arena said. "We have a day or two to regroup, lick our wounds a bit, move forward and put it past us. There's still six points out there."

The U.S. meets Ghana on June 22 in Nuremburg in its final group game.