[OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN] The U.S. Olympic men's team headed to China having gone scoreless in its last four games.

The Americans fell to Cameroon, 1-0, on a 24th-minute penalty kick by Aurelien Chedjou to finish the ING Cup in Hong Kong without a goal. In its previous tournament, the U.S. under-23 national team was shut out by Italy and Ivory Coast to finish the Toulon Tournament with three losses in three games.

"As I said before the start of the tournament, the reason we were here was to make progress in the way we play, said U.S. coach Peter Nowak. "Looking at this game, maybe we're a still a little bit naive about international football. Going into games like this we have to expect that they'll be physical, with a lot of contact so we have to prevail. For us, I think the second half we played much better. Progress has been made and we expect to go to Tianjin tomorrow and polish the things that we need to this week."

The USA traveled to Tianjin on Sunday for four days of preparation before its opening match of the Olympics against Japan (TV: MSNBC, live, 4:30 a.m. ET).

Cameroon had chances in the first half before and after the penalty kick that was awarded after a foul called against Michael Bradley in the area.

In the fifth minute, Stephane Bikey got a head to it and snapped his header hard into the crossbar. In the 34th minute, Robbie Rogers cleared Bikey's header off the line.

The Netherlands took the ING Cup after a 1-1 draw with Ivory Coast.

GAME SUMMARY:
Aug. 2 in Hong Kong
USA 0 Cameroon 1. Goal: Chedjou pen. 24.
USA -- Guzan (Seitz, 46), Wynne, Parkhurst, Edu, Orozco, Kljestan, Bradley (Szetela, 78), Holden (McCarty, 88), Rogers (Feilhaber, 78), Altidore (Adu, 64), McBride (Davies, 69).
Cameroon -- Tignyemb, Baning, Ghomsi, Bikey, Mbia (Elong, 90+), Chedjou (Songo'o, 57), Mbangue (Mboua, 80), Kingue, Ndoubena (Mendomo, 71), Olle Olle (Jeck, 71), Ngal.
Referee: Kwok Man Liu (Hong Kong).