Briton Emma Hayes, 47, has been named coach of the United States women's soccer team, Team USA announced Tuesday. “It is a huge honor to have the opportunity to coach the best team in the history of international football,” said Hayes, quoted in a press release from the federation. “My connection and feelings for this team run deep. I have dreamed of coaching the United States for a long time, this opportunity is a dream come true,” adds Hayes, who launched her coaching career in the United States at a very young age in the early 2000s.
Emma Hayes will first finish the 2023-2024 season with Chelsea FC – which she has managed since 2012 and with whom she reached the Champions League final in 2021 – before joining Team USA “two months before the Games Olympic Games in Paris” (July 2024), specifies the federation, the team remaining led in the meantime by Twila Kilgore. The Americans, crowned world champions in 2015 and 2019, missed their 2023 World Cup with elimination in the 1/8 finals against Sweden in August.