Few folks on the Earth are as certified as Emma Hayes to be the US ladies’s nationwide workforce coach.
The Englishwoman constructed a juggernaut at Chelsea. She gained expertise for that job by coaching and consulting in the USA, the place she helped to assemble a Western New York Flash workforce that received the final WPS championship. She’s a frequent presenter on the annual United Soccer Coaches conference, additionally within the US. Nobody has a greater understanding of the place US gamers stand compared to their worldwide friends.
So when the information emerged that Hayes was leaving Chelsea and is probably headed to the US to take over as the coach of the four-time world champions, the query wasn’t “Why her?” The query: “Why would she take the job?”
Soccer could be merciless to nationwide workforce coaches. Girls’s soccer could be particularly merciless. US ladies’s soccer could be even worse.
Within the minds of the US ladies’s soccer media and followers, nothing is ever the gamers’ fault. It’s never the faulty development pipeline – which, within the US, is a significant issue that has been exacerbated by the monetary calls for of present nationwide workforce gamers (ladies and males) on the expense of any future gamers. It’s at all times the coach.
In any case, nationwide groups have extra leeway to exchange the coach than they do to exchange the gamers, who’re sure to their international locations by delivery or citizenship. The US nationwide workforce’s gamers, due to a long time of media adulation, have even larger leverage than their counterparts elsewhere. Gamers can supply a agency stamp of approval, as they did when Vlatko Andonovski was employed in 2019. But when a coach rocks the boat, the gamers might pull out the knives and make a coach stroll the plank. In 2014, US Soccer’s denials {that a} participant revolt led to Tom Sermanni’s dismissal got here throughout because the sound of a federation that protested an excessive amount of. Jill Ellis needed to survive an rebellion as a way to keep a job she did brilliantly, balancing the egos on the workforce and masking some weaknesses with sound techniques as a way to win a second straight World Cup in 2019. Even Pia Sundhage, who rebuilt the workforce after it crumbled within the 2007 World Cup, had her share of critics.
Hayes might not face the identical restrictions as her predecessors. Below earlier labor agreements, US Soccer saved a core of gamers on wage, and altering up that core was extra sophisticated than merely saying it’s time to herald Participant X to exchange Participant Y. That’s not the case beneath the brand new CBA, and Hayes has extra freedom than earlier USWNT coaches to choose the gamers she needs. She can also profit from arriving at a time through which a number of the outdated guard is on its approach out – Megan Rapinoe has ended her international career, and Alex Morgan is one in all a number of gamers whose roster spots are absolutely not assured transferring ahead. The following 12 months or two might be one of many few instances in US ladies’s soccer historical past through which competitors for locations is actually vast open.
However Hayes’ decisions will nonetheless have limits that she didn’t face at Chelsea, the place the membership’s deep pockets and monetary dedication allowed her to assemble a digital All-Star workforce. Final 12 months, Chelsea had 9 gamers in the Guardian’s list of the world’s Top 100 players. Pernille More durable and Magdalena Eriksson have since gone elsewhere, however Hayes merely added Ashley Lawrence, Mia Fishel and Catarina Macario.
With the USWNT, Hayes will select from a big however muddled expertise pool stuffed with gamers who struggled in youth worldwide play and seemed naive on the World Cup this summer season. Making the unsuitable decisions wouldn’t simply weaken the lineup on a given day. It will weaken her political capital in an environment through which followers, gamers and the media can rapidly flip in opposition to her.
Hayes’ place in England is safe. She’s leaving a spot through which she’s revered for one through which she’s revered – however so was Vlatko Andonovski.
Hayes has been a serial winner at Chelsea, constructing a workforce and a membership in her personal picture. “[Hayes] constructed the whole lot at Chelsea,” Katie Chapman told the Guardian in 2021. “From having the package washed to having meals, to having our personal constructing, to having our personal coaching and pitches. Now, it’s an absolute skilled setup however the whole lot’s been a combat over time to do this. She’s at all times how she will help all people else.” Will she have the identical type of oversight and affect with US Soccer as she did with Chelsea?
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To an up-and-coming coach, the US head teaching place could also be a dream job. It may simply as simply be a nightmare. Why would a longtime coach like Hayes take that likelihood?
However whereas Hayes’ alternative seems perilous, it’s additionally one which’s troublesome to query. Her father just lately handed away. A nationwide workforce place, free of the grind of home and European league play, might supply her extra of the work-life steadiness she has publicly lamented that she doesn’t have at this time. If moving across the Atlantic seems best for her family, then it’s the precise alternative, interval.
She would even be properly compensated after all, and could end up making seven figures if she does take the job. She can also orchestrate a turnaround that may add to her legacy. The place there’s a disaster, there’s additionally a possibility.
And if Hayes made dangerous selections frequently, she wouldn’t have compiled such a glittering checklist of accomplishments. And if anybody can survive the pit of vipers into which a US ladies’s nationwide coach is thrown, it’s Hayes.
US supporters ought to take into account themselves very fortunate. This can be a job that may scare away quite a lot of good candidates, with good cause. However one of many greatest authorities within the sport isn’t afraid of the problem.
