There was no masking the frustration. Speaking moments after her team’s shocking 2-1 loss to Portugal – a team that have never beaten or even scored a goal in 11 previous all-time matches against the USWNT – manager Emma Hayes was notably irritated. She had reasons to be. The U.S. had lost in her tenure twice before, to high-caliber teams, Brazil and Japan.

They had not, however, lost in the way they did Thursday night.

“Sometimes, as a coach in this position, it feels like whack-a-mole,” Hayes told TNT. “I aged 113 years on the touchline. It’s frustrating… What am I telling them for the next game? Let’s get our fundamentals right. We can’t score at the start of the game and be on back foot afterwards… We scored a goal, and we stopped playing. If the Under-23s were watching, we’ve worked on our principles and plays and if they’ve watched that tonight, they’d wonder what ours were?

“We didn’t look like a team the whole evening, on both sides of the ball. We didn’t press together, we didn’t possess together, it felt like a yard off in our brain. I could see that.”

After netting just 33 seconds into the match on a finish from Rose Lavelle, the USWNT, in Hayes’ eyes, switched off. That can happen. The problem was that they never switched back on, giving up two inexcusable set-piece goals to a Portugal team that had, coming into the game, gone winless in their last eight matches.

And while much of the credit goes to Portugal for standing firm against the defending Olympic gold medalists, Hayes and the USWNT – which hadn’t played since July, and bore the rust to prove it – are rightly looking in the mirror after something of a wakeup call.

“We can use that as an excuse, but I think that’s a cop out,” midfielder Sam Coffey told TNT, referring to the long layoff. “We’re too good for that and ultimately, tonight was just not acceptable. It was not our standard. I think we were really individual. There’s a lot of weight that comes with wearing this jersey, and that’s the way – we take it so seriously. That’s the best responsibility in the world and I don’t think we did a good enough job honoring that tonight.

“With that being said, it’s a bump in the road. And I know this team and we have to respond now in the best way possible.”

That response will have to come on Sunday, when these same two teams meet again in East Hartford, Connecticut. It’s clear that Hayes will expect something much different.

“I am frustrated,” the USWNT boss said. “I have to do my job. I’m in this team, too. I am responsible. It’s my job to pick us up and demand the best from us.”

GOAL breaks down the winners and losers from Subaru Park.