Emma Hayes comes to USWNT as a five-peat WSL champion at Chelsea

Emma Hayes arrives in America next week and will be in charge of the US women’s national team at her first training camp, as five-time reigning champions of the English Women’s Super League.

Hayes, who was appointed as the new USWNT coach in November, capped a remarkable 12-year run at Chelsea with a 6-0 win over Manchester United on Saturday, the final day of the WSL season.

Chelsea moved level on points with Manchester City and two ahead on goal difference, the first tiebreaker. With City playing Aston Villa at the same time, Hayes and Chelsea fans prepared for what many expected to be a tense two hours.

But in an emphatic first half, the Blues scored four goals and effectively buried both Manchester clubs inside 45 minutes, sending Hayes off in style.

It had been an emotional week for the 47-year-old Englishwoman. Tears welled in her eyes and weakened her voice during interviews. She had given her players a set of personalized commemorative rings. The rings were engraved with the year she arrived at Chelsea, ‘2012’, when she took over an underfunded part-time team; and ‘2024’, the year she will leave the country as the dominant force in British women’s football.

Also prominently engraved on each ring were the words “WHAT GOT US HERE” – a reference to the motto Hayes coaches with: “What got us here won’t get us there.”

The slogan defined both her continued evolution at Chelsea and, now, her role in America.

It rang truer than ever during her final weeks and months in London. Her talismanic striker, Sam Kerr, went down in January with a torn cruciate ligament. Kerr’s replacement, Mayra Ramirez, signed for a club record fee from Levante and also struggled with injuries throughout the spring as the WSL title race became increasingly tight. And Hayes entered a crucial final month without its most dynamic playmaker, Lauren James, who was sidelined with a foot injury.

But Hayes and her team adapted. They bounced back after losing a heartbreaker to Liverpool on May 1. They won at Tottenham on Wednesday to move level with City at the top of the table. Hayes then made a huge decision ahead of Saturday’s decider: She started Ramirez, who hadn’t played in more than a month.

Ramirez rewarded her coach’s faith by bullying Man United’s defenders, controlling the first half, scoring twice and assisting two others.

Hayes, wearing a track jacket and custom Chelsea boots, clenched her fists repeatedly and euphorically as the goals flew in one after another.

She gestured to the thousands of Chelsea fans who had traveled to Old Trafford in Manchester.

She also controlled the match with confidence.

The entire afternoon was a perfect summary of who she is and what she has done.

She is a kind, caring, psychologically smart human being; and also a brilliant, pragmatic football coach.

“She has a lot of character,” Chelsea and American forward Catarina Macario said last month. “But yeah, I mean, she’s just a serial winner.”

Saturday’s title was her seventh in the WSL and the last of five in a row. At the final whistle, she hugged her coaching staff and then, one by one, her players. Captain and defender Millie Bright was first. Bright burst into tears as they hugged and kissed Hayes on the side of the head.

For Hayes, however, there will hardly be time to celebrate. In the coming days she will fly across the Atlantic Ocean, stop on the US East Coast and then travel to Colorado for her first USWNT training camp. She will announce her first selection, which will take place on May 27, less than two months before the Olympic Games. She will coach her first U.S. match on June 1, a friendly against Korea.

She steps into the USWNT locker room and immediately commands respect. She will implement her ideas and perhaps even disrupt the American soccer ecosystem.

She didn’t need a new trophy for that. But during her emotional farewell, she lifted one anyway. Of course, that’s what ‘serious winners’ do.