Hayes irked by 'unrecognizable' U.S. in shock loss

CHESTER, Pa. -- A frustrated United States women's national team head coach Emma Hayes said her team was unrecognizable in its 2-1 loss to Portugal on Thursday at Subaru Park.

"I didn't recognize us," Hayes said. "We just rushed everything, we went direct. We didn't look like the team that we'd been working on, but that's what happens when you've got 113 days apart."

The loss was the third of the calendar year for the USWNT, which has only occurred four other times in the program's 40-year history. But the two losses earlier this year came at the hands of fellow world heavyweights Japan and Brazil while Hayes experimented with young players.

Hayes called Thursday's loss, the team's first against Portugal in 12 matches, the most irritating of her 18 months in charge thus far, because of the way the team played.

"I was frustrated this evening because I felt like a game of a whack-a-mole," Hayes said, repeatedly hitting her hand on the table in the press conference room to illustrate the point.

"I felt like if I put something out then I was whacking that. That's how the game felt for me as a coach, and I've been doing this for so long - I hate them games."

Hayes said the team mistimed everything defensively "from front to back," and didn't win duels. The Americans also conceded both goals on corner kicks, which she related back to nearly four months between international windows.

Midfielder Sam Coffey was less willing to use rust as an excuse.

"There's a million excuses you could make - and we're not going to," Coffey said. "To say that we haven't been together or we're young or whatever I think is a cop-out. The standard of this team is to own when you are not good enough and you're not playing up to the standard of the crest. There is a standard of winning, and it exceeds all of those things."

The game started brightly for the Americans, with midfielder Rose Lavelle (who appeared to be in an offside position) scoring 35 seconds into the match. But Hayes said that her team was on the back foot from there and failed to build any momentum.

"It felt like a team in preseason to me, so we've got to let it go," Hayes said. "But as I always say, don't make it a habit. How we show up tomorrow, how we show up tomorrow is important."

Her players echoed those thoughts. Lavelle and Coffey both said there were too many individual efforts, while captain Lindsey Heaps added that "sometimes it felt a little bit like we were on islands."

Hayes complimented Portugal and told her team that they can't underestimate European opponents who get more experience in tournaments and "know how to kill off games." But the USWNT coach also felt her team failed in numerous ways on Thursday.

"The reality is, it's not good enough from the team, not any individual," Hayes said. "I thought the team was poor tonight, and I said that to the players afterwards that, look, everybody might want to try and solve sometimes a difficult game when it's not going very well. The problem with that is, the team wins games."

The USWNT will get a shot at revenge, as goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce called it, on Sunday in East Hartford, Conn. As bad as Thursday's performance was, Heaps said they can't get too down about it.

"We haven't been together in four months, we've gotta remember that," Heaps said. "We've had two days of training, we've gotta remember that. You don't want to be super negative right now because you'll just beat your head in."