COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — New United States ladies’s nationwide workforce head coach Emma Hayes should shortly overhaul a workforce coming off its worst World Cup end in historical past final 12 months. First, she quipped, she wanted to be taught everybody’s names.
Hayes took the microphone at Dick’s Sporting Items Park on Friday for her first formal information convention as head coach, and she or he stated there may be one a part of the workforce she desires to stay the identical.
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“Everyone knows the principle elements of the American DNA, and that won’t change beneath my stewardship,” Hayes stated.
Chatting with reporters final week, Hayes partly outlined that DNA as “the angle in the direction of efficiency and the expectation to offer it all the pieces you’ve got received … managing stress on the largest stage, managing the badge on this jersey.”
Hayes stated on Friday that she has been conducting 15-minute particular person conferences with each participant in camp, a course of that can carry into subsequent week because the workforce’s first coaching camp beneath its new coach continues. Attending to know gamers on and off the sphere “is the place the overload has been,” she stated.
“I do not do quick pals,” Hayes stated, underlying the pragmatic strategy she retains describing. “I would like us to construct the proper issues in the proper moments.”
Saturday’s sport towards South Korea can be Hayes’ first answerable for the USWNT since she accepted the job in November. Hayes completed the European season with Chelsea, successful a fifth straight English league title earlier this month.
Hayes could have Saturday’s sport and a rematch on Tuesday in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier than choosing her 18-player Olympic roster someday within the subsequent month. The workforce and a brand-new employees have lower than two months to get synchronized forward of the Olympics in France.
Hayes spoke final week about the necessity to strike a stability between gifted younger gamers and having skilled voices within the locker room. Ahead Alex Morgan — who’s totally accessible after a current ankle harm — is essentially the most capped participant in camp, and is now assimilating to her fourth full-time teaching transition with the USWNT.
“I feel it signifies that we’re each studying from one another shortly as wanted,” Morgan stated about Hayes’ want to protect the “DNA” of a workforce that has received 4 of the 9 Ladies’s World Cups. “The whole lot is on monitor. I feel she got here into this setting and clearly it is one thing that she had been wanting ahead to for a lot of months; it is one thing we now have been wanting ahead to, having her in, for a lot of months.
“I feel it simply means we’re in a extremely good place and in a spot of mutual respect and understanding that we now have to construct belief. It has to start out someplace, however we’re in a very good place.”
Hayes stated Friday that there are various issues she is not going to talk about about workforce issues in public, however she continuously praised her gamers’ capacity to digest data in her 13-minute information convention.
“I feel there’s been a greater tactical understanding then I anticipated, however for me a very powerful factor is the flexibility to understand the knowledge actually, actually shortly. [They’re] sponges, unbelievable sponges.
“It doesn’t matter what we have thrown at them this week, they’ve taken it on, they’re absorbing it. This workforce is determined to enhance and is concentrated on the performances and the processes to try this.”
A couple of minutes later, the workforce took the sphere beneath sunny Colorado skies and started passing drills that ended with goal-scoring alternatives. Hayes stood in the course of the sphere and communicated orders, finally telling gamers that they must select the proper passing sequence.
A passing sequence drill from the open portion of the #USWNT‘s MD-1 observe forward of Emma Hayes’ first sport in cost. This was when employees simply added the layer of defenders to the combo and gave gamers the choice to alter and select the sequence of play. pic.twitter.com/2E1MXIjQbe
— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) Might 31, 2024
“Emma surprises us day-after-day,” USWNT ahead Sophia Smith stated. “She’s a ball of vitality, however all of us knew that. She’s an incredible particular person, in the beginning. She’s a enjoyable coach to play for; she’s a coach you wish to play for.”
As 19-year-old attacking prodigy Jaedyn Shaw stated: “It is go time.”
