Moments after Chelsea‘s emphatic 6-0 Ladies’s Tremendous League (WSL) win at Aston Villa, the membership introduced that supervisor Emma Hayes would go away on the finish of season. ESPN sources have confirmed she is now set to take the United States job, and people unaware of her achievements within the English recreation will marvel what she is going to carry.
Since arriving at Chelsea in August 2012, Hayes has received six WSL titles, 5 FA Cups and two League Cups, in addition to the one-off Spring Collection in 2017 and the Group Defend in 2020. The one title that continues to elude her is the Ladies’s Champions League: her crew made it to the ultimate simply as soon as, again in 2020-21, the place they have been soundly overwhelmed by Barcelona.
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Removed from simply being a supervisor who has stuffed the trophy cupboards at Chelsea, Hayes has overseen the transformation of the ladies’s facet of the membership, continuously pushing for higher remedy, funding and respect; all of these efforts have helped positively influence ladies’s soccer throughout England. Chelsea have improved season on season, as Hayes had developed the squad, filling the dressing room with winners and providing them a number of the highest requirements.
Talking on her contribution to Chelsea, sporting administrators Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley mentioned: “Emma has been one of many greatest drivers of change in ladies’s soccer. Her achievements at Chelsea are unrivalled and can reside within the membership’s historical past without end.”
This is what USWNT followers can count on from Hayes, each on and off the sector.
Hayes’ administration philosophy
Hayes takes a holistic method to teaching, on the lookout for marginal beneficial properties off the pitch, treating her gamers with compassion and fostering the appropriate setting to assist them flourish. She has enhanced her backroom employees and regarded on the influence of issues such because the menstrual cycle on the bodily restoration of her gamers, in addition to the necessity for higher practices in ladies’s well being and sport.
She has additionally been there for gamers after they’ve wanted help, displaying an trade main private contact to maintain them past the bounds of a soccer pitch. And it isn’t simply gamers who’ve lauded Hayes for her empathy and willingness to be a sounding board; each Carla Ward (teaching at Aston Villa) and Kelly Cousins (nee Chambers, who labored at Studying earlier than taking a director of soccer position with the Utah Royals) each citing her as a confidant who has helped them on their managerial journeys.
Having reduce her enamel with the Lengthy Island Woman Riders and Iona Faculty in New York, Hayes returned to England as Vic Akers’ assistant at Arsenal. Hayes’ experiences on the opposite facet of the Atlantic did not finish there as she spent two years with Chicago Pink Stars. It was so key in her growth that she as soon as informed Chelsea TV that though she was born in England, she was “undoubtedly made in America.”
All through her profession, and particularly at Chelsea, Hayes has tried to maintain forward of the curve on the subject of teaching and participant administration, at all times on the lookout for out-of-the-box — or out-of-football — methods to achieve her gamers and assist them develop. From giving her squad books to learn, to having them practice in jerseys of the opposition — thereby altering how Chelsea perceived Arsenal, who have been the dominant crew in England earlier than the Blues — and use of motivational audio system and movies.
Forward of their Champions League semifinal second leg in opposition to Bayern Munich in 2021, with Chelsea needing to overturn a 2-1 deficit from the primary leg, Hayes confirmed her gamers a video of a UFC champion repeating, “I am the perfect” simply earlier than a combat. Chelsea went on to win 4-1 at house, overrunning a Bayern crew who had no reply.
Two years earlier, on the similar stage of the competitors, Chelsea wanted to overturn a 2-1 loss in opposition to the [then] five-time winners Lyon. Moderately than look to sport for assist, Hayes invited Holocaust survivor Susan Pollock MBE to Cobham, who gave a chat to her squad to each educate and assist her gamers develop. Chelsea ran eventual champions Lyon shut, pushing them laborious all the way in which to the ultimate whistle in a creditable 1-1 draw.
Hayes will full one other season with Chelsea in 2023-24 earlier than taking full cost of the USWNT forward of the Paris Olympics. With the U.S. having sleepwalked via the previous three years beneath former coach Vlatko Andonovski, who departed his position on Aug. 17 after the crew’s worst-ever displaying on the 2023 World Cup and spherical of 16 exit, Hayes’ appointment alerts the beginning of a brand new period.
How Hayes’ groups are likely to play
Throughout her time with Chelsea, Hayes has labored on perfecting completely different types, memorably utilizing a three-player protection throughout Chelsea’s early outings in Europe, placing the emphasis on a clear sheet and on attacking from the again. Over time because the Blues have developed, the main focus has shifted ahead to defending from the entrance, permitting for a extra aggressive circulate with the ball.
The U.S. arguably didn’t harness the perfect of their assault beneath Andonovski, however Hayes will probably deploy an identical type to the one she’s developed at Chelsea that enables flexibility in personnel and participant overloads within the ultimate third. The embarrassment of riches within the USWNT expertise pool is more likely to trigger complications as Hayes narrows down the gamers who’re best-suited to her squad, and those that will fall outdoors of a normal 23-player roster. There may be little query concerning the high quality coming via, however the nationwide crew wants an overhaul, one thing Hayes is used to; as a coach, she’s no stranger to taking a cut-throat perspective when wanted.
An instance might be discovered from her early days in London. From that first Chelsea squad of twenty-two that Hayes inherited, solely 11 gamers returned for her in 2013, with one other seven let go the next yr as she introduced in expertise from throughout the globe to suit her evolving imaginative and prescient simply as she’d tried to do with the Chicago Pink Stars. Certainly, no participant might get too snug in a Hayes crew; many who helped ship Chelsea’s first WSL title in 2015-16 have been quickly surplus because the supervisor once more took the prospect to decisively improve her squad.
There isn’t any query Hayes performs an energetic position on the subject of her crew, however she remains to be a supervisor whose focus is on successful leaves little room for sentimentality. Or as U.S. worldwide Catarina Macario mentioned to the Each day Mail earlier this yr, “She’s a really passionate particular person. She has powerful love together with her gamers which is one thing that brings out the perfect in you. However she’ll additionally provide you with reward, the little issues when it is wanted.”
It is also price stating that she’s been vital of the USWNT for the reason that 2023 World Cup, writing bluntly about their shortcomings within the Telegraph:
“There’s nonetheless an enormous quantity of expertise on this U.S. crew, however with so lots of the squad enjoying solely within the NWSL, it does not supply sufficient variety to their squad when it comes to enjoying in opposition to completely different types. Right here in Europe, the place you are enjoying in numerous competitions, Champions League or cups, gamers aren’t going to be fazed by different issues as a result of they arrive up in opposition to completely different soccer week in, week out.
She did not cease there:
“… total, I feel America are massively in need of artistic expertise. Once you’re enjoying in opposition to extra well-organised groups, better-coached groups, it’s important to break them down, and that breaking groups down is a mix of technique, ways and personnel, and I do not see that they have the personnel to do this.
This might trace at extra than simply beauty modifications as soon as Hayes is totally snug within the position.
Hayes is at her finest when she lets the pure expertise of her gamers shine no matter formations and positions, however the secret is how the crew comes collectively, working as a unit, masking area to strangle possibilities for the opposition.
Likewise, as her groups transfer ahead, they have an inclination to in a single giant mass, stretching throughout the pitch and shutting down the ball, forcing turnovers to maintain the percentages of their favor. A typical of the Hayes period at Chelsea was how the Blues routinely regarded as if they’d a numerical benefit.
There will probably be gamers within the U.S. crew already acquainted to Hayes, having introduced Mia Fishel and Macario — who’s but to characteristic after struggling an ACL damage in 2021 — to Chelsea over the summer season. Hayes additionally has the uncommon alternative of serving to the attacking duo perceive her concepts for the USWNT earlier than she takes full cost in Could.
In addition to Fishel and Macario, Crystal Dunn will probably be greater than conversant in Hayes, the ahead/defender/ahead having spent 2017 and half of 2018 in Chelsea blue. Certainly, it was Hayes who opted to push Dunn into the defensive third even after the U.S. worldwide had confirmed her price within the ahead line, selecting up the NWSL golden boot in 2015.
It was throughout a time interval when Hayes was attempting to make use of a again three: the change of form relegated Dunn to a wingback position though she would additionally take up large midfield and putting roles within the crew. How and the place Hayes intends to make use of Dunn for the USWNT stays to be seen, though as has been overtly clear — and never simply when taking a look at her current additions to the Chelsea squad — she prizes versatility.
Relating to the U.S. nationwide crew, there’s little cause for the ruthless and attack-focused type to not be utilized equally because it has been with Chelsea, however Hayes’ first level of order may nicely be about creating the gamers off the pitch with the restricted time she has earlier than taking the job on a everlasting foundation. (She’ll be juggling her Chelsea job for the remainder of the season with this new remit, solely getting 10-day worldwide home windows with which to work her new squad.) This time will probably be spent on the lookout for present partnerships to take advantage of or discovering the concord that enables for flexibility, be it positional or personnel.
