Landon Donovan said he was delighted with the way USA responded after going 2-0 down against Slovenia but could not hide his frustration at seeing Maurice Edu's goal ruled out.
USA looked to be in major trouble at half-time as Valter Birsa and Zlatan Ljubijankic had put Slovenia in a commanding position, but Donovan fired home shortly after the break before Michael Bradley grabbed an 82nd-minute equaliser.
However, it appeared USA should have come away with a 3-2 win after Edu's 85th-minute strike was controversially ruled out, and Donovan feels there was little justification for the decision.
"I'm proud of our guys," he said. "I don't think there's many teams that would respond that way after going 2-0 down [but] I'm a little gutted, to be honest. I don't know how they stole that third goal from us. I'm not sure what the call was. I don't know."
On referee Koman Coulibaly, he added: "It was the guy's first World Cup game, so maybe he got a little caught up in the moment, but you can't take a perfectly good goal from a team, especially at a World Cup."
Coulibaly, from Mali, has previously officiated at several African Nations Cup tournaments and was in charge of the 2010 African Nations Cup final between Ghana and Egypt.
Donovan, though, believes USA should not have allowed themselves to go two goals down in the first place. "We know we're good enough to play against a team like that," he said. "We can't keep putting ourselves in holes like that. We've got one more chance against Algeria, and we're still alive."
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