After their early exit on the 2023 Ladies’s World Cup, america nationwide staff is in dire want of renewal and Chelsea coach Emma Hayes has been tasked with the job.
The 47-year-old has been a trailblazer in England and observers say the “outsider” may very well be the breath of contemporary air that the US ladies’s sport wants.
For many years, the US staff has been a pacesetter in ladies’s soccer, having received the World Cup 4 occasions.
After successive triumphs in 2015 and 2019, there had been excessive hopes from them to finish a “three-peat” of titles at this yr’s World Cup, however the Individuals had been knocked out within the final 16, shedding to Sweden on penalties.
The shock exit raised questions over the efficiency of coach Vlatko Andonovski, who later resigned, with Twila Kilgore taking on as interim coach.
Earlier this month the US Soccer Federation announced that Hayes will take cost of the US staff two months earlier than the 2024 Paris Olympics after she leaves Chelsea on the finish of this season.
The US job would be the first time Hayes has taken cost of a nationwide staff. However as probably the most influential coaches within the ladies’s sport, she boasts a extremely spectacular CV.
Hayes has helped flip Chelsea into the dominant drive in English ladies’s soccer, guiding them to 6 Ladies’s Tremendous League titles – together with the final 4 in a row – 5 Ladies’s FA Cups and two Ladies’s League Cups since she took cost in 2012.
She additionally led them to the Ladies’s Champions League last in 2021, the identical yr she was named FIFA Ladies’s Coach of the 12 months.
Earlier than Chelsea, Hayes labored in US soccer with Lengthy Island Girl Riders, Iona Gaels and the Chicago Purple Stars.
Brandi Chastain, a two-time world champion with the US, mentioned it’s an “intriguing” appointment that may problem the USWNT, who’ve slipped from first to 3rd within the FIFA world rankings because the World Cup.
“I’ve heard she’s a stickler for the details about the growth and development of the players, and a certain style of play,” she mentioned.
“I think it will be a great challenge for the players. I don’t know if they’ve been challenged outside of their comfort zones in a long time.”
Hayes is understood for her direct and attacking strategy however adapts ways and formations to the gamers at her disposal, and observers say she boasts glorious individuals administration expertise.
“Hayes’s style of football is very much like her, direct,” Canadian sports activities journalist Mariam Kourabi mentioned. “There’s a heavy emphasis on fast motion of the ball, making essentially the most out of possession and being medical in every single place.
“Fast and effective football is what made the USWNT terrifying for many years, which is exactly what they have lost, but is what Hayes enforces.”
Kourabi, additionally the founding father of the SHE scores bangers podcast, praised Hayes’s willingness to make daring choices – one thing she mentioned ex-USWNT coach Andonovski did not do, significantly with substitutions.
“Hayes is particularly known to turn things around when trailing behind, even if it means taking a player off only 30 minutes in.”
American sportswriter Jeff Kassouf mentioned that Hayes is uniquely positioned as somebody accustomed to the US setup and participant pool however one thing of an “outsider” at a time when the staff wants new concepts.
“Hayes has proven herself to be one of the best managers in the world. She is unafraid of failure in the short term if it means finding the right long-term answers, as she has shown with her tactical flexibility at Chelsea,” Kassouf mentioned.
“The USWNT needs that more than ever. The Americans have recently looked rigid and almost afraid of improvisation, which is needed in big games.”
Crew in transition
The US staff is presently in a transitional section after veteran gamers Megan Rapinoe, Julie Ertz and Ali Krieger introduced their retirements. The Individuals boast a wealth of younger expertise in Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and others, however they’re but to achieve their peak.
The onus now lies on Hayes to make sure the US can carry out on the Paris Olympics, held in July and August subsequent yr.
“Hayes has developed plenty of youngsters into stars under her guidance such as Niamh Charles, Ji So-yun, Hannah Blundell and Lauren James now,” Kourabi mentioned.
“She has additionally performed an enormous function in unleashing potential from already established gamers like Sam Kerr, Guro Reiten and Magdelena Eriksson.
“She is one of the most versed in coaching both the rookies and the veterans, which is exactly what the current USWNT in transition needs.”
Whereas ex-USWNT participant Chastain believes that Hayes will carry “a breath of fresh air” to the staff, she mentioned that the English coach will even face an enormous problem in implementing her strategies in simply two months earlier than the Olympics.
“If the communication starting now towards that date is open, it’s clear, it helps the players who are either on the roster right now, or she believes should be on the roster, then they can get an idea of what she wants all the positions to look like,” Chastain mentioned.
Kassouf, founding father of The Equalizer, a web site on ladies’s soccer in North America, mentioned Hayes won’t have sufficient time to organize the staff for the Video games, however an Olympic medal shouldn’t be dominated out.
“The coach and player talent is there. Crazier things have happened,” Kassouf mentioned. “[But] this hire is clearly about winning the 2027 World Cup, and that’s a fine concession to make.”
Trailblazer
Whereas Hayes’ appointment will change issues for the US staff, additionally it is a landmark second for the ladies’s sport.
US Soccer has introduced Hayes will change into the highest-paid ladies’s soccer coach on the planet, although the governing physique didn’t reveal particulars about her wage.
The Athletic reported final week that Hayes might be paid 1.6 million kilos ($2m) – the identical because the US males’s nationwide staff coach Gregg Berhalter.
The transfer can be a serious victory in a protracted wrestle in the direction of pay parity for women in football.
In February 2022, the US nationwide ladies’s staff won a $24m payout and a pledge from US Soccer to equalise pay for the boys’s and ladies’s nationwide groups in all competitions, in a landmark settlement that ended a six-year authorized battle over equal pay.
Chastain mentioned the transfer to make sure pay parity for female and male coaches was “a long time coming”.
“There have been stumbling blocks earlier … but now, we don’t have to justify it to anyone that a woman should be paid for equal work to her counterpart.”
Kourabi mentioned Hayes has lengthy been a trailblazer in elevating the requirements in ladies’s soccer by advocating for elevated prize cash for competitions, pushing for video games in huge stadiums for bigger crowds, and breaking switch data with signings akin to Pernille Tougher and Lauren James at Chelsea.
“The US Soccer Federation was the first, after many fights, to strike equal pay, equity, and increased pay for their international teams. This is two torchbearers coming together,” she added.
Whereas the US is on the forefront of pay parity for coaches, different higher-ranked groups have a protracted approach to go.
The German ladies’s coach reportedly makes 300,000 kilos ($377,000) yearly, whereas the boys’s coach is paid 5.6 million kilos ($7m). England’s ladies’s head coach is paid 400,000 kilos ($503,000), whereas the boys’s coach earns 5 million kilos ($6.3m).
Chastain mentioned US Soccer’s transfer to pay Hayes the identical as her male counterpart will push different federations to do the identical.
“I do believe that every country or governing body will have to take note and sit up and say, ‘Okay, this matters. We can’t pretend like women’s football isn’t viable, isn’t important, or doesn’t meet the standard of our men’s side.’”
