Agree. Another way to look at it: The women's game today globally stands on the shoulders of giants, namely the previous generations of USWNTs and of women's soccer players (from all countries) playing at US colleges -- as well as the Women's Professional Soccer League and the WUSA pioneering the way for the women's pro game, with the scars to prove it. And arguably all of this flowing from Title IX and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 forcing the door open in colleges across the country. I have friends who played in the inaugural women's soccer season at my own college in the Fall of 1989. The world has caught on to the tremendous potential of the women's game and in Europe has caught up, with the European club model appearing to emerge as the superior one for development to the US college model. Excited what a top European women's manager can do with the raw material that is the current USWNT player pool.
Why shouldn't I be worried that Hayes' record at Chicago is indicator of what she will do with US talent?
I thought Hayses coached in England and, maybe, Europe. I did not know she had ever coached in the USA before. What, exactly, did Hayes do or not do at Chicago that has incurred your wrath. I have not followed her closely at all but a real failure at a USA club would be hard to miss. But not impossible. The one other thing is that I am getting old and, sometimes my old brain mixes stuff up and it happens unpredictably. Thanks.
No wrath -- but I think she had a losing record. So just hoped someone could say why they thought she was better with the US style now.
She did have a losing record at Chicago and was fired. But, she was also way less experienced. She had to deal with coaching big-name stars, some of whom were older than her at the time. Rumor has it that some of the issues there were due to the chaos of those WPS years as well (having to do way more management stuff than just coaching). I think her record and experiences with working with stars and big personalities at Chelsea show that she learned from that early experience. There was also a good article on the Athletic that compared Hayes to Sir Alex Ferguson. The comparison was that like Ferguson, Hayes seems to be more a manager of people who will tinker with the tactics to do anything to win rather than sticking to one system or style of play due to a driving soccer philosophy. That's a good thing, imo, coming into a team that plays a quite different system than she has recently had Chelsea playing. She also has very little time to change the system of play before the Olympics; even if she chooses to change the system of play, I'd rather it be with a goal of winning than just to fit her own philosophy of how to play. Hayes coached in the W League in 2002 and then for various teams in WPS from 2008-2011. She has said before that while she wasn't born in the US, as a coach, she was "made" in the US.
Too late to edit the above, but the link to the Athletic article mentioned in my post: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5498763/2024/05/17/emma-hayes-uswnt-sir-alex-ferguson/ Plus, another article I just found looking back at Hayes' time at Chicago and a bit on why it ended the way it did: https://www.goal.com/en-in/lists/em...rbucks/blt8a6d3b9b933d57a3#cs284fd8d8e9a0b5af
in my opinion; USSF needed an marquee name as coach in order to compete with other sports at the Olympics for various endorsement money(this is why Alex Morgan as well gets being picked). So Hayes definitely for fills this, as she’s a big name in woso circles; she’s led Chelsea to 4 successive league titles(the WSL is arguably the top league in the world or at least ala the influence the Premier League is in broso) & a prominent Champions League contender as well as part time BBC commentator. She’s also known to be controversial, as she shoved an opposing manager a few months ago after loosing one game/insults players & refs quite regularly when being an TV analyst. Of course one main reason for her success is her rich Chelsea club can buy her the players she wants(I mean no American pro league infringements like salary caps or drafts to hold her back). So hard to say yet if her actual coz thing is all that good. From what I’ve seen from Chelsea tactics, she likes keeping players in close quarters/possible rectangular shape ala 4-4-2/believes players should have the ability to play multiple positions
some bookies are making the US favorites to win, I disagree, Spain's been winning everything in sight including yesterday's Champions League via Barca
I thought this was a good, fair question (though keep in mind her big star at Chicago was Cristiane!) Personally, I don't make too much of it but if the US national team struggles under her, that question is going to be be very pertinent and impossible to ignore. Someone here said something about rumors of "managerial problems" (or "management problems") at the club, which I find a cheap shot aimed at Arnim Whisler (the original owner). What was the worst that could be said of Whisler? That he hired Rory Dames as coach and kept him on for years. That turned out to be bad, but the worst things Dames did, such as sexually harassing his players, young girls, happened at Dames' youth soccer club, not with the Red Stars. So what's supposed to be the "managerial problems" that excuses Emma Hayes' record as a coach at Chicago other than Whisler has a problem with who he hires as a coach? Not only that, it's a slur on one of the good guys of the sport, Peter Wilt — a good guy not just in women's soccer but in soccer generally and more specifically in the Illinois/Minnesota/Wisconsin area. Wilt, who used to contribute occasionally here at BigSoccer, was the GM who got the Red Stars up and running and served through the first season when he left, as planned, and his successor was Marcia McDermott, one of the first women GMs (if not the first) in professional women's soccer. God's Bloody Wounds — we're just fine with character assassination these days. Sure it's important to fault Arnim Whisler for allowing Rory Dames to remain coach for so long, but we don't have to make out Whisler for being some kind of ogre. This is a man with good intentions; the point, in fact, if we have to criticize or condemn him, is that good intentions aren't enough; that some things like the protection of young women in professional environments is a problem which easily defeats good intentions. In hiring Emma Hayes, the Chicago Red Stars was (I think) the only one of the WPS teams to have a woman coach in its first year, despite having the villain, the enemy of all women, Arnim Whisler for its owner. ADD — so was the "managerial problem" hiring Emma Hayes in the first place, someone who wasn't quite ready for the job? I'm inclined not to think so. I'm inclined to think they hired someone with tremendous promise who has since proved it. They hired someone who was ready to learn along with them; they were all in a learning experience, a new team in a new league in what was still very much a new sport, professional women's soccer **** But who knows, maybe in the end Whisler done Emma wrong. For all those WoSo fans and Journos who despise Arnim Whisler, this is their chance. If the Journos ask the right question, Emma Hayes can stick the dagger in Whisler once and for all. "Why did you leave Chicago?" " Was it a bad environment?" "Was it uncomfortable to work under Arnim Whisler and Peter Wilt?"
Luckily, there is another way now with the NWSL allowing U18 players, and there will be another way soon with the USLSL stating they wanted to create a pathway for academy kids while still allowing them to retain collegiate eligibility like they have on the men's side.
I think you're referring to my post, in which I said, "Rumor has it that some of the issues there were due to the chaos of those WPS years as well (having to do way more management stuff than just coaching)." I said nothing about Whisler, the owner, nor was I even referring to him. For one thing, I'm pretty sure it was Peter Wilt who was GM of the team at the time, but at some point it switched over to McDermott, maybe the next year. Whisler was part of the ownership group, but wasn't doing much of the management from what I remember, unlike the NWSL years. But I was referring to just the chaos of WPS, when hardly anything was run well. Hayes had to do GM-type stuff, not just coaching; she was having to do things that just come with setting up a new team, like finding places to practice, unlike her previous experience at an established team Arsenal. And she wasn't prepared to do all that. Also other stars besides Christiane on that 2009 Chicago team included Lindsay Tarpley, Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe, and Karen Carney. She also worked at the beginning of the 2010 season (she was fired maybe 4-5 games into that season) with Formiga and Asllani.
So it's the general chaos of WPS, the League, that you're talking about? How does that answer the question by @Reccossu about Hayes' losing record with the Red Stars? All the teams, all the coaches, were living with the same "general chaos." With the exception of the LA Sol, it's not like Red Stars were at a big disadvantage in terms of attracting players with higher salaries, state-of-the-art stadiums and training facilities. Pfumpf.
Fans make their predictions based on competing theoretical models. This is serious science Also, it's the silly season. What's the silly season for if not to be silly?
We disagree at times, and that can mane for fun times. But on this case we are in agreement. We need to just wait and see what happens. In fact I intend to watch the Korea friendlies closely but, unless something goes horribly wrong, even those two matches will tell us very little. Mostly I like the way Hayes handled the various periods of adversity at Chelsea (Like Kerr's injury) and how she rotated her squad as needed. Just like I said when other coaches have taken over various teams she needs time to learn about her players and her staff. Things like decision making and effort cannot be judged by watching tapes and people cannot be 100% trusted to provide evaluations that are not biased one way or another. She will have to see for herself. For the women the Olympics is an important tournament and I am sure she will try to have the team as close to perfect as possible but she will be making many guesses because she simply does not have the information depth she needs. I would say that even a slight failure at the Olympics (say losing in the knockouts or the final) would not be too bad. However failing to get out of our group would be hard to recover from. Of course the effort given by the players if we do not otherwise play well will be very enlightening. I think she will do fine, at least for a while, and I agree that second guessing her, based on the past, is counter productive. She has a real problem at the goalkeeper position. Naeher is hurt, and not really good in the first place, and her backups are not reliable. I wish we had more friendlies before the Olympics and I also hope Hayes designs a system for the first two matches that will provide good goalkeeper tests as our 'keepers learn very little when we keep the ball in the attacking 1/3 95% of the time. I am eager to see how she does but I will also give her quite a bit of leeway in the early matches, including the Olympics.
I agree. On the side, how are those granddaughters doing? As I recall, they used to watch games with you from across the ocean. I have only one, who is just finishing her sophomore year in college. You will appreciate that she calls me "Coach" or, more affectionately, "Coachie."
The following has nothing to do with soccer: Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler The girls have, unfortunately, passed away. They and their mom (my daughter) had to move from Japan to Australia (Brisbane area]) because when war broke out in Ukraine there was heightened fear that N. Korea would take advantage of the distraction to launch an attack against Japan. The military considered the threat creditable so their dad had them move so as to be close but out of harm's way. It did not work as they were driving up the coast on a small highway and a large truck had its steering fail and hit them head on. All of the people, including their driver, died instantly. I had problems about it for a while but I have a pretty good support system, all the girls (and some boys) that I have coached kept pestering me until I learned to handle the grief. The sadness is still there but I no longer feel like I am depressed. I posted on these boards about it but that post was missed by many and I thought it was only fair to explain why I no longer mention them in my posts. I now wish I had taken them up on their offer to move me to their area and set me up and move me to follow as needed. I am firmly convinced that if I were driving I could have avoided the accident. (Not really true but I have always had supreme confidence in my abilities to get out of any kind of trouble I could get myself into.) I miss them every single day and my health has become poorer due, in no small part, to grief. Well that is enough crying, carry on.
I really thank those that have expressed sympathy and my grief is still very real but i would like to go back to discussing soccer with, maybe, just a bit of social commentary. I find the escapism of simple or complex discussions of what is essentialia trivia to be quite calming. Again, thanks to everyone that expressed condolences.
What is the tremendous potential of the women's game? Potential to do what? Europe has caught up? in terms of what exactly? USA advantages were always money and volume, not methods. I don't see much evidence that one model is superior for development over the other. The inputs are not the same so it's hard to draw too many conclusions from the outputs.
Althooooooooough I’m keenly aware of one fan, and I won’t say who, that formulates his predictions based on input from Astrophysicists from MIT who monitor the intergalactic aura of the USWNT, futbol operatives from around the Planet, World renowned mathematicians and various Global Religious Leaders. Can’t wait for Denver and St. Paul. I finished packing 3 weeks ago.