U.S. Women’s National Team head coach Emma Hayes speaks with the media after the team’s game against Portugal on October 23, 2025.
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Sonnet and Heaps are too slow and add nothing…bench them and play the youth
Refusal to use left foot negates point blank shots. Continually passing behind players on the run to kill the attack. Fielding three slowest players in the game on one team. All small fixes.
Has Emma abandoned her US kit 😂
Emma, do not underestimate any team. Select good players and form a good team
Until the US aligns their pro scheduals with Europe this is what you'll get. And the US will fall farther and farther behind. France, England, Spain, Portugal, Italy play each other in the euros and that type of competition makes them all better. Align the NWSL and MLS international breaks with Europe and expand She Believes to at least 12 teams (countries) and you'll have Brazil, Japan, China, Korea, Australia, Nigeria, Costa Rica, Canada, Mexico, etc to play in a tournament format. You'll never get better not playing together for 4-5 months and against weak competition.
Heaps has been over the hill for about 3-4 years. Sonnet has always been very erratic. Rose is healthy now, but it's guaranteed that she will be injured again. Macario hasn't been the same player since her big injury. Its clear that Heaps is a favorite of Emma's, so that's going to be a problem going forward when it's clear that Lilly should be on the pitch. Thank goodness that Crystal Dunn didn't get called in again–she's another great player who is well past her prime.
People need to realize that there are no more "gimme" games with the Europeans. Their leagues getting stronger each day and their elite academies (eg. La Masia) are now focused on replicating success with women as they have with men. They have all closed the gap significantly and IMO actually surpassed us with the Spains, Frances, and Englands of the world. This is why Emma has been encouraging our best young girls to go overseas to truly maximize their talents, because staying here and trying to become "world class" playing ECNL/GA or college soccer no longer works.
Wow, not impressed with Emma's commentary nor her starting 11. Why did it take until 65th minute for her to make changes when it was clear her starting 11 wasn't getting the job done? Heaps (Horan) does not have pace for today's game which severely hindered our midfield. The program is not showing progress which again is on Emma.
This is becoming a pattern. But I commend her on her media training, it’s paying off. Now results and performance wise I don’t know! I think the coach has been fortunate to train already horned high performaning athletes. That’s the reason why US did well at the Olympics, it’s the individual players not the coach. I am yet to see the coach’s impact on this team. Still giving me Vltko vibes with a lot of verbose
Lindsey and Lilly are not even the best Americans on OL Lyonnes. What’s up Emma?
Build the midfield
Everyone is freaking out but our entire starting frontline and generational talent CB are out with injury. Not to mention they hadn’t played together in almost 4 months. Portugal is a quality side. And it’s a friendly. Everyone chill tf out
Friendlies are for developing young players. A team that wins all friendlies, likely isn’t developing.
Why is Heaps on this team…appoint a new captain. She will be 33 for World Cup. Emma dropped Alex Morgan why is she afraid to drop Heaps???
Why is Sonnett starting? Is this just a non-issue until Girma returns?
Hayes it is high time to select our team. Portugal played like a well coached team.
We are so lucky to have Coach Hayes.
defence needs a lot of work…….
Boiling it down, I saw one team hustling like crazy getting to almost every ball; and the other team just running around constantly a step behind. It's like the USWNT was too focused on finesse and not getting gritty, down and dirty.
This loss is 100% on Emma! Her lineup seemed designed to make the team struggle and fail
1- What good is having speedy wingers if the team spine is slow and ineffective? Sonnett should be strictly a bench player, Sams should have started, Lindsey should also be a bench player at this stage of her career, and Macario is too small and slow to be a #9. She's a #10 who refuses to use her left foot which cost us a goal tonight.
2- Avery Patterson is a right back, not a left one. Her struggles meant that Alyssa was starved of service against Portugal's high line
3- Macario is averaging less than 30 minutes at Chelsea. Why does Emma insist on giving her so many minutes? She should be a bench player until she is a starter on her club team, whether it's Chelsea or somewhere else. She also needs to have a left foot if she is to start games for the USWNT, and let's not even mention the number of times she was offsides.
4- Rose treated the game like it was a training scrimmage whereas the Portuguese players came to play. The number of times she was offsides was inexcusable, as well as her frequent turnovers.
5- Conclusion: This was an embarrassment, and it brought back memories of Vlatko-ball, not exactly a compliment. The level of lackadaisical effort should hopefully not be repeated.
That was horrific. It's crazy, the final third and being offsides are just two puzzles this team just cannot seem to solve.