Jurgen Klinsmann struggled to deal with United States' extra-time defeat to Mexico in the CONCACAF Confederations Cup Play-off.

An additional 30-minute period was required with the game,  which decided the continental representative at the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia, level at 1-1 after 90 minutes, but Paul Aguilar's 118th-minute stunner secured a 3-2 win for Mexico.

The USA boss admitted it was difficult to take and insisted the squad will need to pull together ahead of the start of their qualification campaign for World Cup 2018 in November.

"A loss is always difficult to swallow, there is no doubt about that, especially when there is a lot at stake," Klinsmann said in his post-match press conference.

"It means that you have to work even harder than you ever did before in order to turn the results around and to make things happen.

"We have to get our group together and re-think the next couple of months. Obviously we are going to go into World Cup qualifying in November.

"We have to sit together and discuss things, and who we are counting on, how we want to build the next couple of games and there's not much time in between.

"There will be a lot of conversations coming up the next couple of days."

Klinsmann urged his charges to remain positive despite the defeat and praised their character for twice coming from behind to level the contest.

"When you are then on a losing side, it hurts, that's normal," he continued continued.

"It takes a couple of days to swallow, but I told the guys: 'Heads up because you gave it everything you had'.

"Coming back twice against Mexico and playing very openly is impressive, but it wasn't enough unfortunately."