The United States can let other countries, such as your Germany, be the leaders in soccer (although the Brazilians seem to have some animosity toward the United States).
If that would be true, it would be a declaration of bankruptcy of all American sportsmen. Even our baseball-team (a sport that practically does not exist in Europe and is unknown by large parts of the Europeans) tries to win and I as a German will support them in doing that.
It is fun to compete with other nations in a fair and sportive manner. If someone surrenders in advance, it is simply a sign of decadence to me.
Anyway - I think that the US have a professional team that will bring good scores. This is nothing that has to be hidden away.
You know, comparing the Brazil and US teams in soccer is like comparing the top NBA teams and British Championship team in basketball (basketball is practically a non-existent sport in Britain). It basically is so much better tahn the US team that it doesn't care about how the Americans are doing.
We could, but we don't. The US team is ranked #5. The only teams in Europe that beat it are the Czech team and the Netherlands team. Yes, that means we are higher ranked than England, Germany, and Italy! We have an awesome team!