Hayes slams the table after 2-1 loss: “It felt like Whac-A-Mole out there”
CHESTER, Pa. — U.S. women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes repeatedly slapped the table at Subaru Park on Thursday as she described her frustration following the team’s 2-1 loss to Portugal.
“I was frustrated tonight because it felt like a game of Whac-A-Mole,” Hayes said, striking different parts of the table to make her point. “Every time I tried to fix something, another problem popped up. That’s how the game felt from the sidelines — and after doing this for so long, I hate those kinds of matches.”
Portugal scored both goals from corner kicks — “no coach ever likes conceding on f—ing set pieces,” Hayes said with a smile as she left the press room, drawing laughter — while the U.S. struggled to connect both on and off the ball against a disciplined Portuguese side.
“It felt really individual out there,” said midfielder Rose Lavelle, who scored just 35 seconds into the match. “Everyone was trying to fix things on their own.” Captain Lindsey Heaps added, “At times, it felt like we were all on separate islands.”
The sluggish performance brought back echoes of the 2023 World Cup, when the U.S. narrowly avoided elimination after drawing 0-0 with Portugal — saved only by the goalpost in stoppage time. That day in Auckland, alarm bells literally rang at Eden Park due to a malfunctioning sprinkler — a fitting metaphor for what became the team’s worst World Cup finish days later against Sweden.
But Hayes wasn’t in charge then. Despite being disappointed with Thursday’s “rushed” display, she wasn’t panicking.
“As Ben Northey, the Australian conductor, would say: ‘Let it go,’” Hayes said, waving a hand past her face.
It might sound like an easy excuse, but Thursday’s match came 113 days after the team last played. “It looked like a preseason team to me,” Hayes admitted. And more importantly, the 2027 World Cup is still 609 days away.
This loss marks the team’s third of the calendar year — something that’s happened only four other times in the program’s 40-year history. The U.S. has never lost four in a single year.
Portugal’s diamond-shaped midfield controlled 60% possession in the first half, exploiting the spaces between the U.S.’s three-player midfield and moving the ball fluidly around them. Though wasteful in open play, Portugal punished the U.S. on set pieces: Diana Gomes rose above three defenders to equalize before halftime, and Fátima Pinto buried the winner after a failed clearance.
“There were issues all over the field,” said midfielder Sam Coffey. “You can make a million excuses — we won’t. Saying we’re young or haven’t been together is a cop-out. The standard of this team is to own it when we’re not good enough. The standard is winning — that’s it.”
Thursday’s defeat was only the third time ever that the U.S. has lost to a team outside FIFA’s top 20. The bigger concern wasn’t the scoreline but the disjointed, individual play — the lack of problem-solving and cohesion that mirrored their World Cup struggles.
“Don’t bring me back to that game,” Heaps said with a faint laugh.
Still, there’s perspective. The poor showing is an anomaly in the Hayes era. Since taking over before the 2024 Olympics, Hayes led the U.S. to gold and reshaped the program, handing out 24 first caps in her first 24 matches — a remarkable period of experimentation and success.
That’s why Heaps remained upbeat after the loss. “We can’t be too negative,” she said. Thursday’s match wasn’t a World Cup — just the first step on the road to next year’s qualifiers.
Yes, it was ugly. It was disconnected. But it wasn’t catastrophic.
“It’s a game of football — no one died,” Hayes said. “We’ve got to be better, and I promise you we will be better — we better be.”
The rematch on Sunday in East Hartford, Connecticut, could offer redemption. Goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce summed it up simply:
“Revenge, for sure.”
