Gold medal is only the first step of USWNT's Emma Hayes era

PARIS — One day last winter, Crystal Dunn sent Emma Hayes a text.

The message was something along the lines of, “Ma’am, I hear rumors!” Dunn recalled recently, and it was rooted in the bubbling speculation at the time that Hayes was going to become the new coach of the United States women’s national team.

Dunn, a veteran defender who had played a season under Hayes at Chelsea before moving to the NWSL, said Hayes seemed excited but was understandably circumspect in their exchange, and Dunn concluded it by telling Hayes: “I hope it’s true. Because I think you’re going to be amazing.”

Nearly 10 months on, that interaction lives large in Dunn’s memory primarily because Hayes did in fact become the U.S. coach and, in a whirlwind start, has already delivered: The Americans won an Olympic gold medal on Saturday in Hayes’ first major tournament in charge.

It is, by any measure, an auspicious beginning for Hayes, who just came on the job in June after completing the club season. But it is also illustrative of what the future may hold for a program that is very clearly changing.

In a short time, Hayes has touched the team’s personnel, tactics and playing style in significant ways, in addition to making powerful individual connections — some of which were trickier than others — while also pushing her team to rediscover the joy the players feel for each other.

“She’s implemented so many things and coached us in a way that we’ve really needed,” U.S. captain Lindsey Horan said.

U.S. forward Sophia Smith, who scored three goals during the Olympic campaign, including the dramatic game winner in extra time of the semifinal, said it even more simply: “We’re a different team.”

That is no small feat, either, given the state of the program a year ago. After being eliminated in the round of 16 at last summer’s Women’s World Cup — the worst finish ever in a major tournament for the U.S. — the team moved on from coach Vlatko Andonovski and looked toward what had been an inevitable recalibration.

Hayes, who won five league titles in a row at Chelsea, had never managed internationally but was very familiar with American players after coaching at Iona College and at several professional levels in the U.S. from 2002 to 2012. She arrived with ideas and began implementing them right away.

Her style — and one of the attributes that players almost universally say they appreciate — is to be straightforward and blunt. Other coaches might have included Alex Morgan, the American mainstay in attack, on the Olympic roster, if only because it would be the easier choice for a new person coming in; after all, Morgan is one of the best U.S. goal scorers in history. But Hayes had no impulse to appease anyone, deciding that Morgan wasn’t a fit for the style she wanted to play and preferring instead to go with a younger group.

As it turned out, the attackers she chose — Smith, Mallory Swanson and Trinity Rodman — were among the standouts of the tournament, with each one providing a decisive goal in three straight 1-0 victories for the U.S. as it swept through the knockout rounds.

Hayes didn’t simply throw the trio together, either. She tweaked Smith’s playing style, asking her to poach more around the goal instead of dropping deeper as she does with her club team. And she encouraged all three players to express themselves, to experiment with their collaboration, offering a freedom within their given responsibilities that resonated.

Rodman pointed to her highlight-reel, game-winning goal in the quarterfinals as an example. That strike, a blistering left-footed blast from distance that ripped into the upper corner of the goal, was a shot Rodman considered only because she knew Hayes wouldn’t judge her if she blasted it 20 yards over.

“I had shanked one almost for a throw-in right before that,” Rodman said. “But having her as a coach, you kind of know that that’s not going to change the way that she’s viewing the game and to just keep trying things.”

Defensively, Hayes made changes, too. Leaving Naomi Girma in place was a no-brainer — “She’s the best defender I’ve ever seen,” Hayes said — but partnering her with Tierna Davidson and then bolstering the defense by featuring deep-lying midfielder Sam Coffey, who was left off Andonovski’s World Cup roster, are among the moves Hayes made with confidence.

She has also shifted some positions around, playing Dunn as more of a go-forward winger than she has been in the past, for example, while also limiting her substitutions and lineup changes overall. While that surely led to increased fatigue, Hayes said she wanted the players to “suffer” because she felt that building chemistry between her top players was more important.

“I think anytime there’s newness and change, it’s always a bit refreshing in any sense just to make that transition,” veteran goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher said. “And I think you can see everyone kind of buying into it and buying into her.”

Tactics aside, managing the personalities of a group of players of varying ages and experiences is a challenge all on its own. Some of Hayes’ work in that area is basic and fun — she brought in a karaoke machine for the team, which quickly became a focal point of the team’s downtime. (According to Horan, Rose Lavelle knows the lyrics to so many songs that she doesn’t even need to look at the screen.)

There are puzzles and Legos to also help them bond, but Hayes has worked to build relationships with the players that run deeper. Dunn said that she and Hayes bonded over being mothers, and that she and her coach would talk almost daily about what it is like to manage passion for work with the pain that comes with being away from your child.

“It’s like you try your absolute best to be able to commit to both motherhood and being a player, and I think that sometimes it is nearly impossible to balance,” Dunn said. “She’s been able to allow me to have my crazy moments when I’m like, ‘I want him near me,’ but at the same time [tell me], ‘All those feelings that you feel are pretty normal.'”

Hayes also formed a close relationship with Korbin Albert, the talented 20-year-old midfielder who drew criticism after social media posts in which she appeared to support anti-LGBTQIA+ content. (She later apologized for doing so.)

Hayes made clear that she has no patience for anyone who doesn’t want to foster an inclusive community, but also said her instinct as a mother is “to protect.” Hayes believes that Albert understands the significance of the mistakes she made and is genuine about wanting to be part of the team, and so as a coach she wants to help her grow. On Saturday, Hayes handed Albert a start in the final against Brazil, and Albert delivered a perfect through-ball to set up Swanson for the winner.

The clear investment from her coach prompted Albert to speak passionately about Hayes and what that kind of support means to her.

“It’s tough love sometimes,” Albert said, “and it’s really nice just to have her here and just teaching me and guiding me in every step in every way personally and on the soccer field.

“She reminds me of my mom sometimes.”

Impressive as this opening act was from Hayes, both she and U.S. Soccer know that this is a long-term play. Hayes’ contract runs through the 2027 Women’s World Cup, and while a gold medal in the first few months is impressive, the larger goals lie ahead.

Hayes has thoughts on how to revamp the talent identification system, the player development system and the coordination between youth national teams and the senior team. She has plans for how she would like to see U.S. teams play. She has a vision on how this program could cut through a sport that is getting deeper every day, if it’s pointed in the right direction.

First, though, she is hoping to finally get to fully unpacking her boxes from Chelsea. Then, perhaps, a few days off. Then the push will continue in ernest.

“Tonight, we have a gold medal, but it doesn’t mean it ends there,” she said. “We are just at the beginning.”