SIn a makeshift press conference room on the dance floor of Camden’s music venue Underworld, beneath the World’s End pub, Emma Hayes breaks into a big grin. “Luckily it still smells like farts and feet,” she says. “It used to be a big indie spot for me. I definitely haven’t seen this place in daylight, so that’s refreshing.” Hayes is at home in London and says with a new grin, “I’ve got my mojo back.”
The head coach of the U.S. women’s national team is back where it all started for her, preparing for Saturday’s friendly between her Olympic champions and the European champions, England, at Wembley. This week her cultures collide as she brings her team from the US, where she spent several formative years as a coach, to London, where she grew up, played and became one of the best in the world. Thanksgiving is celebrated at the training ground of the team she supported as a child, Tottenham. This will be a special week.
It’s been a year since Hayes announced she was leaving Chelsea after 12 years to take the American job, and six months since she left Cobham for the last time. She has since taken the US back to the top, winning the Olympic final 72 days after her first training. She needed a change and made no secret of the fact that the club management would impose a toll on her towards the end of her term, but did not know what to expect from the international management.
“I was a little afraid of the consequences this new rhythm would have for me,” she says. “I’m so used to getting in the car and driving to the training field six or seven days a week. I worried about that for about four seconds. And then I said, ‘Okay, what are the benefits?’ I’m allowed to get up and breathe, not rush. I can take Harry with me [her son] to school. I can go to the gym. I get to make my schedule in and around those things. I don’t sacrifice the things that make me feel healthy. Ultimately I didn’t feel healthy at all. By the end of my time at Chelsea I was feeling quite unwell.
“Doing all those things during menopause was even harder. So to get over it, I feel like I got my mojo, my smile and joy back. I didn’t realize how much I had lost all that. To do that means I love football more than ever and I am clear about all the things I want to do.”
There’s a lot on Hayes’ to-do list. “I don’t have a package anymore,” she says. “What I’ve realized is that I’m a builder and when I think back to building anything, from my ten years in the US to building Chelsea, I really enjoy putting together an infrastructure so that it still remains solid even when I leave. .”
There are many projects in the pipeline, including developing the 2027-2028 national team strategy, the youth team strategy, an under-23 team and establishing a youth development program with the help of a $30 million philanthropic donation from Washington’s owner Spirit, Michele. Kang. “I hope to develop a framework within the federation so that everything from commercial to marketing, to communications, to performance, to technical to analytics, is seen through a female lens,” she says.
The potential in the US is enormous. The opportunities at the grassroots and the university system ensure that the talent is there; it just needs to be brought together. “I remember when Japan won the World Cup in 2011, there were more registered female soccer players in California than in all of Japan,” Hayes says. Referring to a thriving football ecosystem, she says: “Uniting that into a development strategy for women’s football is probably the only thing missing, and that will probably be the biggest part of what I can leave behind.” How will she do that? “I say it to my son all the time: ‘How do you eat an elephant? One piece at a time.’”
There are no airs and graces for Hayes. She doesn’t try to change things, but works to close gaps. “I come from a home where you had to keep your feet on the ground and be humble and hardworking. I cherish those things. I grew up in a household where my father put money on the table at the end of the week and there was either enough or not, and we had to figure it out. That was life as an inner-city London kid. That was the making of me.
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“I think Camden is the most beautiful place on earth. Not only because of the multicultural, diverse, eclectic place it is, but also because of the opportunities it gave me. It’s not like I just won an Olympic gold medal. No, I worked for Camden Sports Development, I worked for Camden Playcentres, for our children in the community. I care about people and the community. That undoubtedly shaped me.”
On Saturday, Hayes will hum both national anthems, resist the instinct to shout instructions to Millie Bright, who “feels like a sister to me,” and hope her team gets past Hannah Hampton, who is “kind of close” to had her. son.
“We’re coming this weekend to win,” she says, “but that’s not my overarching goal. I want to qualify for the World Cup and I want to win the World Cup.”