As far as national teams on the global stage go, the United States men's squad has historically been one of the most accessible and cooperative with the press around.

There are myriad reasons for this. For one, the United States Soccer Federation understands that it needs the exposure and encourages its players to open up and talk. Plenty of the players themselves, meanwhile, are well-spoken, thoughtful and outgoing and largely appear to enjoy the interaction. And they all seem to collectively understand that for soccer to continue its rapid ascent stateside, it requires all the ink and eyeballs it can get.

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Lately, however, the mood has shifted.

As his reform project began flagging, head coach Jurgen Klinsmann had previously suggested publicly that the American soccer media – not to mention the general population – didn't understand the sport well enough to judge him and his team. This condescension, however, was occasional and laughed off as the excuse of an increasingly concerned man looking to undercut the building dissent.

Yet in the last week, as his team overcame a 2-0 loss to Colombia in its Copa America Centenario opener with a 4-0 thumping of Costa Rica and a tight but undermanned 1-0 victory against Paraguay – winning the group and setting up a winnable quarterfinal against Ecuador – much of the team has begun taking an adversarial tone as well.

Ahead of the Costa Rica game, Klinsmann again asserted incompetence, and even negligence, among the press. "Obviously the result is a 2-0, and especially here in the U.S. that's all that matters to a lot of people," he said referring back to the Colombia game. "They write all of their articles based on the pure result – maybe they didn't even watch the game." The latter was quite a hefty charge.

"But it's OK, you know, whatever," Klinsmann said, softening his stance somewhat. "For the team, it's important that they know where they stand. They felt with Colombia we had a game, they felt that we were even."

Following an emphatic victory over the Ticos, several players spoke of "you guys" when addressing the media. "You guys all didn't expect us to beat Colombia anyway so it doesn't matter," defender Geoff Cameron said.

"The media puts pressure on us, or whatever it is, after the result against Colombia," echoed midfielder Alejandro Bedoya, per Goal.com. "But we were all staying positive and we knew there were a lot of good things to take from that game, even though you guys said there wasn't."

View photos Michael Bradley said the U.S. must not pay much attention to what gets said or written. (AP Photo) More

Then, after the Paraguay game in Philadelphia, the Americans dashed through the mixed zone, where they usually speak at length with reporters, in a matter of minutes. Even the typically talkative players were clipped.

When captain Michael Bradley – who has been known to expound on tactics and process for a good quarter of an hour but spoke for just two minutes Saturday – was asked what he'd learned about his team in the Copa, his response was telling.

"That we have a strong mentality," he said. "And we continue to not pay much attention to what gets said or written on the outside and keep moving ourselves forward."

"The media said our backs were against the wall," Bedoya added that night, chiming in on the subject a second time. "For us, we didn't see it that way. We did a decent game against Colombia. We remained positive and we remained confident and we knew that we could definitely get through to the next round. And we did it."

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