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Jeff Kassoff
Chester, PA — US women’s national team Head coach Emma Hayes thumped the table repeatedly at Subaru Park on Thursday as she explained how she felt watching her team lose To portugal 2-1 moments ago.
“I was disappointed this evening because I felt like I was playing a game of whack-a-mole,” Hayes said. “I felt like if I put something out there I was hitting on it. That’s how the game was to me as a coach, and I’ve been doing it for so long – I hate games like that.”
Portugal scored both goals on corner kicks – “No coach ever likes to lose on a set piece,” Hayes eventually said with a smile as she walked out of the press conference, drawing laughter from the room – and the U.S. struggled to connect with and without the ball against a well-organized Portuguese team.
“It felt really personal out there,” the midfielder said. Rose LavelleWho scored 35 seconds into the match. “I think everyone was trying to fix it on their own.” captain Lindsay Heaps Adding that “Sometimes it feels like we’re on islands.”
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This slow performance at least brought back memories of the 2023 World Cup, where the USWNT retained it. draw with portugal By mere inches – with the help of the goalpost in stoppage time – and avoided their first group-stage exit in World Cup history. Alarm bells were literally ringing around Eden Park that day in Auckland, New Zealand, due to a malfunctioning sprinkler system – a scene that made the team’s situation clear World Cup’s worst finish a few days later sweden,
But Hayes wasn’t the coach then, and though she was clearly disappointed with her team’s “rushed” performance on Thursday, she’s not worried.
“As Ben Northey, [Australian] The conductor would say, ‘Let it go,'” Hayes said, moving his hand back across his face.
It sounds simple to Hayes, but Thursday’s loss came 113 days after the U.S.’s last game — “It looked to me like a team in the preseason,” Hayes said. More importantly, it was 609 days before the 2027 World Cup.
The team’s loss on Thursday marked its third loss of the calendar year, which has happened only four times in the program’s 40-year history. The US team has never lost four matches in a calendar year.
Portugal’s diamond shape in midfield allowed them to have 60% of the possession in the first half and find open spaces between the U.S.’s three-player midfield, Portugal often played around the Americans, although Portugal was generally wasteful in front of goal during open play.
Problems increased for America at every level. Hayes lamented defensive challenges at the wrong time and losing duels. And then of course there were the set pieces. Diana Gomes beat three defenders at the six-yard line to score the equalizing goal for Portugal just before halftime, and fatima pinto The second was added after the Americans failed to clear a corner kick.
“I think there were some things that weren’t working all over the field,” the midfielder said. Sam’s Coffee Said.
“There are a million excuses you can make – and we’re not going to do that. Saying we’re not together or we’re young or whatever is a cop-out. The standard on this team is to take on when you’re not good enough and you’re not playing to a top-level standard. There’s a standard to win, and it transcends all of those things.”
Thursday’s loss is only the USWNT’s third defeat in program history against an opponent outside the top 20 in the FIFA rankings. It’s a tough lesson for a young American team that Hayes warned not to underestimate Portugal.
The biggest concern wasn’t the results — it was the flat, disjointed performances and the individual ways in which players tried to solve those problems in real time. The lack of problem-solving and creativity ultimately cost the team. This description sounds a lot like the 2023 World Cup meeting between the United States and Portugal.
“Don’t bring me back to that game,” Heaps said with a light laugh Thursday.
But the good news for the USWNT — at least for now — is that the poor performances in the Hayes era are an anomaly. Hayes took over as coach and led the team just months before the 2024 Olympics for a gold medalthen proceeded to overhaul the program and experimented to an unprecedented degree, achieving victory 24 first hats In his first 24 games.
The Hayes era has got off to a great start in the first 18 months, which is why a relatively pleased Heaps repeatedly said after the match Thursday that his team can’t be too negative. Thursday was not the World Cup, but the first game for this core group on their journey to qualifying for next year.
Yes, it was ugly. It was disintegrated. But it wasn’t entirely discouraging or worrying.
“It’s a football game, nobody died in it,” Hayes said. “We have to be better, and I promise you we will be better – we will be better.”
A rematch against Portugal on Sunday in East Hartford, Connecticut, may at least partially explain that optimism. goalkeeper Fallon Tullis-Joyce As for what he has in mind for Sunday, he simply said: “Revenge will be taken.”
