Instead of continuing on in the "prospective new coaches" thread, I thought this news was worthy of its own thread. Emma Hayes has now officially been hired as the next USWNT coach. Here's the USWNT article with some details: https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2023/11/emma-hayes-named-new-head-coach-of-us-womens-national-team And a USSF Q&A with her: https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2023/11/q-a-with-new-us-womens-national-team-head-coach-emma-hayes From the details in the announcement, she'll come on as head coach in May and have 4 games before the Olympics begin. Kilgore will continue on as interim until then, and then will be hired on as one of Hayes' assistant coaches. The two will be working together in the transition period, but it sounds like Hayes will not be physically present for camps/games until May. Crocker is still working out some of the details of that transition period plan though. Additionally, under this contract, Hayes will become the highest paid women's soccer coach in the world. It's not in the article, but in other sources, she'll be making the same base salary as Berhalter of over $1 million (reportedly somewhere around $1.6 million). I haven't seen details yet about how long her contract lasts, but I'd assume it's for the cycle: either through the next WWC or the 2028 Olympics.
Here's a recent Equalizer article on Hayes' coaching style (before the hire): https://equalizersoccer.com/2023/11/04/how-emma-hayes-chelsea-would-fit-united-states-uswnt/ This Athletic article announcing the Hayes hire also has a bit more on her coaching: https://theathletic.com/5032454/2023/11/14/emma-hayes-uswnt-head-coach/?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur And an Athletic article on how the deal with Hayes was struck: https://theathletic.com/5061878/2023/11/14/uswnt-emma-hayes-hire-chelsea/
I'm going to miss someone, I'm sure, but since we've got awhile before Hayes comes in, here's a list of USWNT players who have played under Hayes: Currently at Chelsea: Macario Fishel The above 2 are probably the most important, as Hayes has a reputation for doing well at developing young talent. Past at Chelsea: Crystal Dunn (2017-2018) Allie Long (on off-season loan way back in 2013 but didn't play in a match; also I don't think we can consider Long to really be in the player pool, but just covering all bases here) Possible overlap with USWNT players while she was consulting/technical director for Western New York Flash and then Washington Freedom (not sure on the timing for either or even how much interaction there would have been): Alex Morgan in 2011 at WNY Flash (but Hayes may have already moved on to the Freedom) Becky Sauerbrunn in 2011 (but Hayes was in a consulting role, so may have had no interaction with players) Retired players who played for her in Chicago in 2009: Megan Rapinoe Carli Lloyd Obviously the most recent interaction has been with Macario and Fishel, and then Dunn. On that note, while I've seen some quotes from other players, I haven't yet seen a quote from Dunn on the Hayes hire.
Macario has yet to train under Emma, so she may not even get a good first hand look at her. What position did Emma have Dunn play?
Macario hasn't played a match yet, but she's been in training (or at least there's photos of her in training gear, but not sure how much or what she's been doing). Still Hayes has to have had some interaction with her; I wouldn't think Macario is completely isolated from the team. And, surely Macario will get on the field by the end of the season, unless she's on some Sam Mewis trajectory of injury. At Chelsea, Dunn started out as a forward, but switched to outside defender/wingback and spent most of her time there (and this was before she was a mainstay at left back for the USWNT, although she had played there before. She was switching back and forth between forward and outside back with the USWNT in 2017 as well with limited minutes.)
I do not believe there is any indication that Macario has trained on grass yet. She is not on the Champions league roster either which means she is out for a while still.
Yes, not all players recover from major injuries the same way and Macario sure doesn't look like a fast recoverer. As young as she is, this has the potential of hamper her football career a lot. A question from an outside perspective (i.e., not from an USWNT supporter): apart from the opinion each one of you has of Hayes in herself, do you think a new coach can be enough to lift USWNT up again or is there a deeper crisis (involving the talent pool, the playing style, the development of players, the chemistry of the group, the power of the current rival teams, and so on) that a coach alone can't be enough to solve? In other words, how many of you believe that, with a different coach from Andonovski, USA's finish at the WWC would have been vastly different? And how many instead think that a 3rd consecutive title would have been basically impossible regardless of the coaching? To what extent Hayes can support an actual US' comeback and to what extent she can't do much to change things?
We were an inch from advancing this recent World Cup, and the coaching was terrible. So I believe a new coach can make a significant difference for us. Just look how much better we played in the last World Cup game when the players basically agreed to play their own way and ignore the clown coach. Are we going to win World Cups every 4 years? No. But I believe a new coach like Emma can keep us near the top and win a World Cup or two.
She could be added to the roster for the knockout phase. Each team is allowed to adjust their roster by adding 3 new players.
Well, the argument could be reversed: also inches from being eliminated at group stage by Portugal, if it wasn't for a post.
Both? I think we would have performed better and gone farther with a different coach (to the semifinals possibly?), but a 3rd title was nearly impossible, no matter what. We just had too many key players out with injury, were in kind of a transitional period, and other teams have just gotten better. I mean, 3 titles in a row has never been done for a reason. I think Hayes can definitely improve things, but I don't think a complete overhaul is needed. Obviously, nothing will be in time for a top Olympics performance. Even the timeline for Hayes' arrival shows that we're effectively sacrificing the Olympics to give younger players coming in enough time to develop and be ready for WWC 2027.
I think "playing style" and "development of players" are the key factors. Everything else can be worked out by a good coach. No one is expecting another set of back-to-back WWC victories, but I think USA are capable of winning one out of every four WWC, just based on player pool talent alone.
“Playing Style!” Question is will she be able to find the type of player with the technical and tactical skill set that she may want to see. Will they be able to handle a different style, as well as different formations? How quickly can she accomplish her goals with the player pool she currently has to work with?
Good questions. Regarding your first sentence, I personally think those players exist in the pool, the question is can she develop them? Or will she just adapt a style that fits the best "athletes"? I think Ellis followed the later approach.
Well, a different coach would have meant a different roster, lineups, substitutions and tactics. Would it have led to a better result? I'd like to believe so, as I think Andonovski did poorly in most of the above categories. A third title though? That was always going to be very tough. A Semi-final appearance though, that was certainly doable with the roster we had.
One thing. A national team coach does NOT "develop" players. They do not have the time with the players to do such. Players develop skills and tactical awareness and conditioning at their clubs. What national team coaches (more properly called managers) acutely do is select players, choose what system a team should play (this should be very flexible based on the players), plan sub patterns and be flexible enough to make changes to all of the above if needed. Being rigid in any duty sets up a national team coach to fail. Any manager that sets a system rigidly in place simply cuts down the opportunities. While we "might" be deep enough that we can choose a "system" and then select players for it that approach so cuts down our pool that it is quite doomed to failure.
Watched Chelsea play Barcelona today to see Emma's team play. Ended 2-2 bur Chelsea totally dominated. I really liked the movement off the ball and hope Emma can bring that to the USA. If so, changes will have to be made in order for us to play like that. There are no slow players on the Chelsea. Emma will have to find a good number of younger, faster players. We have a few that can adapt in the pool.
I agree that she should not have too, but our youth system is not good at developing players, for various reasons, so she will need to with some, not all, players.
Nope. The development system may be broken but the head coach of a national team should not waste time developing player. I actually think mostly we are OK in development we are just not good at getting older players to develop. The NWSL is OK but flawed and that is where we need to spend time and money but the National team Manager should never be directly involved. She should point to where the program should go but then get out of the way. Development is not her job and it should not be.
I am pretty disappointed with this hire. Emma Hayes is a decent enough coach. However, if USSoccer is going to pay by far the biggest women's coaching salary in the history of the planet, why do they have to wait 6 months for the coach to actually take over the team? Obviously Hayes is under contract at Chelsea, but given the money involved, USSoccer could have bought her contract out. Which raises the question, how bad does Emma Hayes actually want to coach the USWNT? Frankly it's trash. The USWNT are going to have a mediocre interim coach for practically the entire runup to the Olympics. It's the Olympics, a 12 team tournament, so you only need a couple game hot streak to win the thing. However, this situation is very suboptimal.