Emma Hayes emphasizes ‘maximizing the moments’ after one year with USWNT: ‘You cannot waste a single session’

In her return to Minnesota a year after taking the role of the American national team manager of the American ladies, Emma Hayes is in the corridors of the dressing room after a press conference with media, the time to chat with a young family and poses for photos with their daughters. She is the one who asks playful questions to the little girls, who make their excitement, before she politely finished her after signing souvenir rally towels. It is a small moment, but it is symbolic of how Hayes’ appointment meant an important change for our football a year ago. She is a coach, unlike earlier managers for her, with a public profile that can compete next to her star players.

The USWNT has long been a point of pride about American football. They have a long history of winning, four world cups, five Olympic gold medals and a constant draw built in stadiums that they play all over the world. If the USSWNT is a top neighborhood Sports Entertainment for American football fans, Hayes is one of the headliners.

When Hayes won her first games as the official head coach of the National Team of the US Women in June 2024, expectations were immediately set. The pair of friendly matches against South Korea in Denver and Minneapolis last year was just the beginning The USSWNT era with Hayes as a manager.

Completed on and next to the field

After a disappointing exit from the World Cup World Cup 2023, US Soccer Hayes adopted in November 2023and she was only a few weeks on the sidelines for the 2024 Olympic Games. The Iconic Chelsea FC Manager Steped in the USWNT role as a six-time Super League champion for women and double UEFA ladies coach of the year.

A winning coach for a long -winning national team. Except that the team she inherited was in the middle of the transition. His first Superstars are retired or in different phases of their careerBut even with Staff shiftsThe expectation of the USWNT program has rarely changed. You win and then you keep winning.

A year after her term of office, Hayes did not only meet those expectations, she surpassed them. She has preaching process and patience since her arrival a year agoAnd the team still led to Olympic gold in Paris after just 75 days at work. She has reached the double mandate of stimulating grid changes and to lay the building blocks for future success while she now also wins.

“I think the biggest thing I have learned is that you have to maximize the moments you have with the players,” said Hayes about her first year as a USWNT manager.

“Because you have so little, and I have learned that there are several ways to maximize that, and not only if you only have 10-day camps and large chunks in between. Be innovative about how you can accelerate learning. I have always enjoyed innovative ways to do that, but I certainly think maximizing the most people is the most that I have most of them the most that I have the most that I have the most I have the most I have had the most that I have the most I have.” “”

After the gold medal of the USWNT at the Olympic Games, between the balance between the timely leisure time, Hayes quickly aimed its sights on the 2027-28 cycle. She immediately sketched 2025 as a timetable for expanding the player pool by making “Futures camps” as a way to re-launch a sleeping U-23 program that can develop alongside senior national team windows.

As part of her desire to innovate, she developed ‘the WNT Way’. The leading principle starts with the emphasis on “placing the female lens in the heart of everything we do,” she told the media in February during a small virtual round table.

The umbrella goal of the Hayes WNT manner is to function more than a philosophy. Of course she wants to compete for trophies, but also has ambitions to concentrate the entire WNT ecosystem. She emphasized that much of what currently exists in the football strategy is a copy and pasting of the programming of men and applied to women.

With the WNT way, she wants to shift the opinion and create sustainable change and opportunities for women through a hyper-oriented 360 approach. It is as ambitious as she is. The intention is to influence the player and environments through multiple channels and systems. It is first focused on players, but Hayes wants a more viable future for female coaches, referees and the general sciences behind how female athletes are cared for.

It is a much longer -term project than coaching the number 1 ranked team in the world prior to the next major international cycle. Perhaps an important part of her lasting effect has extended its reach over several generations of players in one year.

A larger player forest, but still uswnt DNA

In the first year of Hayes as manager, 23 players earned first call-ups to national team camps, including the recent summer window with Orlando Pride defender Kerry Abello and the current midfielder Labonta of Kansas City as the 22nd and 23rd players.

There were 19 players who made their first official debut with the national team through 22 games of Hayes on the sidelines. They are more changes than the 18 that her predecessor, Vlatko Andonovski, had with the team about his entire three -year term of office. She almost focused on the second on her first 20 games that are in charge of the team, with 17 player debut. The record was initially established during the founding days of the ladies’ national team from 1986 to 1988.

Teenage seam, 17-year-old midfielder Lily Yohannes is one of the next generation of players who earn a schedule in USWNT camps. Yohannes has also made Her senior debut next to Hayes a year ago.

The young prospect has eight performances and one goal and was named in every camp schedule in 2025. She has shown her skills, and Hayes has been transparent about the patting of public expectations for Yohannes Because they are still in the early stages of international play. The process has made a much less busy environment possible for the teenager.

“I think Emma really makes it clear what she is expecting from me, and also for the team. Every camp continues to build on it, and with every other opponent and other playing style we try to adjust, and that is just something that you try to put in your game and help the team,” said Yohannes on Hayes’ coaching.

Whether it is about deepening the player pool, evaluating multiple prospects or developing off-pitch paradigms, Hayes has also made extra effort to help develop people. When it comes to leaders in the team, Hayes is pronounced about her drive to help others grow with an open door for feedback. She has had leadership interviews with team captain Lindsey Heaps, together with Sam Coffey, Tierna Davidson, Emily Sonnett and Naomi Girma, and more.

Girma is in her fourth year as a member of the National Team and broke through as a USWNT controlled during her 2022 NWSL Rookie and defender of the year season. She is no longer another generation player, but a contemporary key figure, and visited Hayes for advice about her Historical transfer to Chelsea FC. The US Soccer Female Player of the Year from 2023 was appointed vice -captain earlier this year.

“Of course there is so much that you see on the field, and how we play, and winning a gold medal, and all that. But I think even the bigger impact is probably what she is doing behind the scenes,” Girma said the impact of Hayes in the past year.

“Ensuring that US Soccer has a way to develop young players, ensure that they are seen, ensure that they understand how we want to play and understand our principles. I think that is something that will help us in the coming years, but also in the next about five to 10 years.”

HEAPS has worn the Teamcaptain bracelet since 2023 and therefore constant questions about experience among the team as several of her Former teammates and former captains retired. She credits Hayes with her development, not only as a player, but as a leader in the team.

“I think it’s probably [on] More of my role as a captain. What she gave me and the relationship I had with her. I think it’s something that I didn’t really experience, “said Heaps about the influence of Hayes’ year one.

“It’s just, it’s really crucial to having that kind of role as a captain and head coach and bouncing things apart. But also trust. To go to her if things have to be said, and her, vice versa. So I think that’s the feeling that I got in the past year and also in the Olympic Games.”

Build the road for us

Together with the restoration of the Stars and stripes to his dominant best after a matte world cupHayes has shown that she was perfectly suited to take the position, not only to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games, but also to reset the program. During her early reintroductions in the media a year ago, she explained, “We have work to do,” And since then the English coach has hit the clock.

‘You don’t have it [time]. You cannot waste any session, a single chance, because you have so little at international level. And surround yourself with great people, “Hayes said about her biggest lessons in year one as a manager.

“I am so blessed that, not only that leadership, but the people we place in positions in WNT and YNT, have made me more enthusiastic for a long time. Because we bring so many different innovations in the women’s game, the game of girls, the play of the girls. Everything from the development of mental skills to female health, the support of menstruation, whatever it is.

What is the following

While Hayes and the Coaching Staff welcome the mid-2025, they will continue their structure in the direction of the 2027-28 cycle with more luminaires and player review.

After a two-game sweep from China and Jamaica, the USWNT will be back in the winning column after a 2-1 loss for Brazil in April. The national team will organize Ireland for a few friendly competitions that start on June 29 in Commerce City, Colorado and Cincinnati, Ohio on June 29. Later they have a summer window where they will be confronted with Canada on July 2.

More friendly matches for the rest of the year will be announced later, and until the point of Hayes will count at any time and matters every minute. The group has about 17 months until the qualifying competitions of the World Cup. The Concacaf W Championship, where the two best -arranged countries in the region receive a direct bye, starts in November 2026.