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 study 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 he or she stated there’s one a part of the workforce she needs to stay the identical.
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“Everyone knows the principle elements of the American DNA, and that won’t change below my stewardship,” Hayes stated.
Chatting with reporters final week, Hayes partly outlined that DNA as “the perspective in the direction of efficiency and the expectation to present it every little thing you’ve got bought … managing strain 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 below its new coach continues. Attending to know gamers on and off the sector “is the place the overload has been,” she stated.
“I do not do quick pals,” Hayes stated, underlying the pragmatic method she retains describing. “I need us to construct the correct issues in the correct moments.”
Saturday’s sport towards South Korea can be Hayes’ first in control of 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 may 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 steadiness between proficient younger gamers and having skilled voices within the locker room. Ahead Alex Morgan — who’s totally accessible after a latest ankle damage — is probably the most capped participant in camp, and is now assimilating to her fourth full-time teaching transition with the USWNT.
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“I feel it implies that we’re each studying from one another shortly as wanted,” Morgan stated about Hayes’ need to protect the “DNA” of a workforce that has gained 4 of the 9 Girls’s World Cups. “The whole lot is on monitor. I feel she got here into this surroundings and clearly it is one thing that she had been trying ahead to for a lot of months; it is one thing we’ve been trying 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’ve to construct belief. It has to begin someplace, however we’re in a superb place.”
Hayes stated Friday that there are lots of issues she is not going to focus on about workforce issues in public, however she continuously praised her gamers’ capability to digest data in her 13-minute information convention.
“I feel there’s been a greater tactical understanding then I anticipated, however for me an important factor is the power 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 targeted on the performances and the processes to try this.”
A couple of minutes later, the workforce took the sector below sunny Colorado skies and commenced passing drills that ended with goal-scoring alternatives. Hayes stood in the midst of the sector and communicated orders, ultimately telling gamers that they must select the correct passing sequence.
A passing sequence drill from the open portion of the #USWNT’s MD-1 follow 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 by day,” USWNT ahead Sophia Smith stated. “She’s a ball of power, however all of us knew that. She’s a tremendous individual, in the beginning. She’s a enjoyable coach to play for; she’s a coach you need to play for.”
As 19-year-old attacking prodigy Jaedyn Shaw stated: “It is go time.”
