Emma Hayes, chief architect of USWNT’s rebuild: From ’emergency surgery’ to embracing change
One year ago, Emma Hayes was trying to fly under the radar at the U.S. women’s national team’s hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She had travelled over from the UK for a couple of days during the final camp of 2023 to meet with staff and players for the first time following her appointment as head coach, with months still remaining in her managerial role at Chelsea of the Women’s Super League.
It was a little awkward but very needed. The team was coming off its earliest exit in a World Cup, and they had recently said goodbye to veterans including Julie Ertz and Megan Rapinoe.
The side’s new beginning under Hayes couldn’t come soon enough — but would have to wait until the following May. She had a long goodbye to finish and a final WSL title, her seventh with Chelsea since 2015, to win.
“I think it was super-important for her to come in, and not just introduce herself and say, ‘I’m leaving!’ but introduce herself and really say, ‘Look, I’m with you guys. Obviously, I have this obligation that I committed to’,” forward Lynn Williams said last December.
That meeting set the groundwork for a gold-medal-winning summer at the 2024 Olympics in France and what is currently a 15-game unbeaten run under the new boss. “It’s been a year of surprise,” Hayes said last month, “but massive enjoyment.”
With the USWNT’s final match of 2024, an improbable 2-1 away win against the Netherlands in The Hague on Tuesday, now in the books, the team has capped off its comeback year with a clutch of Olympic gold medals and an 18-1-4 record. With Hayes at the helm, they had 13 wins and two draws. And maybe it was a symbolic victory, but after sinking to its worst-ever FIFA ranking in June, fifth, the U.S. regained top spot as a bonus.
It was a year of many changes, not just with the planned handover from interim head coach Twila Kilgore to Hayes, but among players too. Kilgore left the coaching staff in September to pursue other opportunities. There have been other departures too, with another wave of player retirements, from forward Alex Morgan (whom Hayes left off the Olympic roster) to goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. But Hayes has taken the changes in stride, giving 11 players their first senior call-ups — the majority of those also earning their first starts.
“I know that this time last year, I kept thinking, ‘Wow, this is a mad situation to be in’,” Hayes said. “I’m still coaching a team (Chelsea), but have to prepare another one; excited, but unaware of the depth of the player pool. I remember I just kept thinking to myself, ‘I know there are players here in this country, and I know that my job is to provide opportunity’.”
Hayes has lived up to that line of thinking — even during a pressure-packed year that included an Olympics.
The team’s success in 2024 can’t solely be attributed to the new head coach, though. Naeher became an expert at saving (and taking) penalties, center back Naomi Girma cemented her status as one of the best defenders in the world at 24 years old, and “Triple Espresso” was born with Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson challenging back lines in the heat of a French summer.
It’s been a year, but Hayes provided a throughline for the team’s redemptive arc. And she has served as the chief architect of reframing the team’s narrative since her very first official day on the job.
Before the Games began in July, Hayes ducked every question about Olympic results and instead focused on process and performance. As her first camp came to a close at the start of the summer, with Paris 2024 looming, Hayes compared herself to “a heart surgeon in the middle of emergency surgery”, trying to teach and fix at the same time.
Then during the Olympics, with 18-player gameday rosters stretched by the high temperatures that came with some mid-afternoon kick-offs, she embraced suffering on behalf of all. She showed the players videos from an ultra-marathoner and explained the concept of a “pain cave”. The USWNT were perfect through the group stage, then came through with back-to-back extra-time victories against Japan and Germany to reach the final.
The message coming from Hayes and the players was a constant drumbeat: joy, trust, confidence. They could be silly and ruthless at the same time. And at Paris’ Parc des Princes on August 10, they won gold.
“Trust me, I know what this jersey means,” Hayes said after that last win over Brazil. “But I’m not going to let it strangle me, far from it.”
The project then changed, to one far less results-oriented and with a much longer deadline, and also the true job Hayes had been hired for: winning the World Cup in 2027. The international windows in October and November/December were the first looks at Hayes finally free to explore the depth of the U.S. player pool.
She is also done with the emergency surgery line, for good.
“I’m on the wards, I’m in the clinics,” she cracked, in the press conference announcing the final roster of the year. “We’re developing the leadership. It’s functioning, it’s high level. I think everybody understands the ethos. I think it will become even clearer once we deliver the WNT strategy in January. I think that’s when we can go to another level.”
With that strategy laid out for everyone, Hayes said, every department can grow into their roles with a full understanding of the objectives for the women’s national team across all ages. Plus, the Futures Camp is coming up next month, where Hayes will evaluate a mix of senior and youth players. It also means an even deeper dive into the depth chart.
“It’s a lovely hospital,” Hayes said, laughing, evolving her medical metaphor. “People are really good, and the patients are behaving really well.”
Hayes might still have a few surgeries left to go, especially in the case of Naeher’s retirement.
“A big hole,” Hayes talking about the goalkeeping succession plan Tuesday following the Netherlands game, “but there’s also a big opportunity for anyone that’s within that pool.”
While Casey Murphy may have the most caps under her belt (20), Hayes said the team has to develop its next three goalkeepers.
“We will probably have to go through a period of determining who that number one will be, probably over the course of next year,” she said. “I will have to give players experiences, because they don’t have them.”
While America’s next top goalkeeper didn’t pick up experience against the Dutch, the final match of the year may have been the team’s most chaotic but also most illuminating with Hayes in charge. While she said her team was “bullied” in the first half, she ultimately got exactly what she wanted.
“I feel like there has been lost development for less experienced players. You can sit here and talk about, ‘We want to ready players for whenever that might be’, but I can assure you, I will learn a lot more today against top-class opposition away from home midweek than I will, say, a home game in the sun against someone not at the same level. And I wanted that,” she said post-game. “I wanted to be brave with the decision-making, to end the game with less experience in the front areas to see how they would cope.”
After Hayes’ first few months were geared toward the Olympics despite so little lead time, the start of the next cycle must feel like a luxury. She has a full year ahead to maneuver her way through some of the lingering questions around this team — as well as the next No. 1 goalkeeper there are ongoing midfield issues — and focus on development before the screws start to tighten with the start of World Cup qualifying in 2026.
“I’ve been so impressed with the players — as people, as learners, as committed. I knew it was a big thing to play for the USWNT. I knew it, but I didn’t realize how big it was for these players,” Hayes said last month.
“I say that because the love they feel when they put on the crest gives me so much purpose every day — to make sure I honor that in the best way possible in driving the program.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
US Women's national team, Soccer, NWSL, Olympics
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