USWNT lose to Portugal: Emma Hayes isn't worried about it.

Emma Hayes isn’t worried about it.

The USWNT lost 1-2 Thursday night behind a flat performance, but there are plenty of reasons not to panic over the squad’s third loss in 2025. The last time the USWNT came together, Hayes’s side won three matches 11-0 on aggregate, marking a second straight international window without allowing a goal against. However, the 113 days in between international windows took their toll with a critical injury to Trinity Rodman and a general degradation of the squad’s cohesiveness. 

It’s an easy excuse to point to, and one Hayes hopes will work itself out over the course of the window, but the time in between windows doesn’t tell the whole story.

The US went up 1-0 immediately thanks to some Cat Macario magic (we’re so back) and a generous read of the offside line as Rose Lavelle tracked back into play. 

USWNT fans have seen this before; it’s usually off to the races from here, but on Alex Morgan tribute night, it wasn’t meant to be.

The early goal became the attack’s best opportunity: out of five shots on target, only the goal was a dangerous shot opportunity. 

“I didn’t recognize us, I felt that we just rushed everything, we went direct, we didn’t look like the team that we had been working on, but that’s what happens when you go 113 days apart and I actually felt it the last two days in training, there were so many misconnections just taken a bit of time to get on the same page, sometimes you need a kick up the backside like that.”

The US seemingly dropped off its press to defend in a midblock, and while that did stop Portugal from creating too many dangerous chances from open play, it did not stop the Portuguese attack from entering the attacking third, nor did it stop them from scoring on two poorly marked corner routines. 

“Sometimes you can start the game like that and hope that you don’t sit back and be passive, but that’s what we did,” Hayes said. “They came out in a diamond shape, created some problems to get pressure on the ball, and we tried to adapt to that in the first half. We still couldn’t get a grip of the game. I thought defensively, from the front to the back, we just mistimed everything, didn’t win our duels in the right moments. We didn’t allow anything in open play, but they were deserving of a goal in the first half for their play. In the attack, I just felt that we hadn’t played together in a long time.” 

Hayes was adamant through her post-match comments that rust and execution contributed to the frustrating result, rather than anything in the group’s game plan… but that wasn’t quite the case. Hayes took a gamble with RB Avery Patterson starting on the left over a more traditional LB in Lilly Reale. 

That gamble didn’t pay off; Patterson wasn’t as confident carrying the ball on her opposite side, compounded by Hayes’s usage of the FBs in general. Neither Patterson nor Emily Fox was relied upon to supply the width. Instead, both were tucked into the midfield while Michelle Cooper and Alyssa Thompson carried the play out wide. There were a few bright moments, but generally, the buildup was lost. 

The midfield continued to be a mess with the pairing of Lavelle, Lindsey Heaps, and Sam Coffey failing to find balance. Maybe next time the Lavelle-Heaps pairing will work…

My read is that the midfield can’t work when Heaps is tasked with the two-way midfielder duties. There’s a reason why Coffey and Lavelle gelled when Claire Hutton was the third in the midfield triangle. 

Afterall, there were only four changes from the 3-0 win over Canada. Fox moved Patterson to the left over Reale, Heaps replaced Hutton, Macario tapped in for Biyendolo, and Phallon Tullis-Joyce replaced Claudia Dickey. The midfield was the most obvious with PTJ and Macario becoming a few of the bright spots on the night.

The obvious change is inserting Hutton back into the lineup, but the approach has to adjust as well.

Now, Hayes’s side will have an opportunity to rectify this performance in Sunday’s rematch in Hartford, a match that Hayes hopes will be a return to form and a little less like whack-a-mole. 

“I felt like I put something out, and then I was whacking that.” Hayes finished. “That’s how the game felt for me as a coach. I’ve been doing this for so long. I hate them games, but we got another one in a few days, thank goodness, because it gives us an opportunity to rectify the performance, not the result the performance.”