Hayes frustrated after USWNT's shock loss against Portugal - ESPN

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