A GAME CHANGER
Ever since Pelé first slipped on a New York Cosmos shirt in 1975, football players and coaches moving to America have carried an air of glamour. From George Best to Lionel Messi, via Johan Cruyff and David Beckham, there is something of the pioneer spirit in heading Over There, and always the tantalising sense of a bigger picture, the deal that sees ‘soccer’ break America. That has never quite happened, usually because the USA USA USA (let’s get it out of the way) tends to attract players past their prime, or those looking to build their coaching experience – your Rooneys, your Henrys, your Vieiras. With Emma Hayes, it’s a different story.
One of the best women’s football coaches in the world is heading west to take on the biggest job in the women’s game, and perhaps the most high-profile vacancy in football, full stop. Her appointment has been an open secret since Hayes called time on her 11 years at Chelsea, and was confirmed on Tuesday with a distinct lack of razzmatazz. “This is a huge honour to be given the opportunity to coach the most incredible team in world football history,” Hayes cheered. “The feelings and connection I have for this team and for this country run deep.” This will not be Hayes’s first job across the pond – she coached at college level and helped build a title-winning team with Western New York Flash. She will earn a reported £1.3m a year after leaving Chelsea at the end of the season, and her appointment marks a clear change in direction from US Soccer, where the coaches have tended to keep a lower profile behind household-name players.
Not that Hayes is afraid of change – she has helped build Chelsea from the ground up, from early days washing kits to multiple WSL titles and a Big Cup final appearance. She has also earned the right to keep the job for as long as she wanted – and deserves credit for taking a risk to prove herself in a very different arena. The 47-year-old insists that family time with her young son is key to her decision – but she must also have been tempted by the rebuilding challenge offered to her. Managing the USWNT is a big job, and a tough one – particularly right now. The golden generation are moving on, and this summer’s World Cup ended with a whimper not even their harshest critics might have expected. There is plenty of young talent but a lack of structure to develop players, and a fear that European nations are overtaking them. Hayes’s first task will be to lead the team at next summer’s Olympics, but she will have only a few weeks to prepare. That will offer an interesting litmus test as to whether fans will accept short-term disappointment to make long-term gains.
Chelsea also have to find someone to replace a manager who is synonymous with the club – early names in the frame include OL Reign’s English-born coach, Laura Harvey, and former Barcelona manager Lluís Cortés. For now, Hayes has a job to see through, and the chance to make more history with Chelsea – starting tonight, with a Women’s Big Cup blockbuster against Real Madrid. For now, it is worth celebrating that an English woman who forged her own path into coaching is now the highest-profile managerial appointment in recent memory – and her American adventure really will change the game.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We’re very much looking forward to welcoming an enthusiastic supporter to our backroom staff. There are definitely plenty out there who know how to guide us to glory in the Football Manager game, so we’re excited to welcome someone who can replicate that in the real world” – Bromley boss Andy Woodman on the news that a National League promotion hopefuls are hiring a tactician on the basis of how well they perform in playing every nerd’s favourite video game. Yup.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
It was 1994 and I was touring Measure for Measure in South America, where my wife, Tamsin, joined me in Buenos Aires. We had a matinee on the Saturday afternoon of the River/Boca Juniors derby, to which Tam had managed to get a couple of tickets, so off she went with a friend and I went to work. They were still the days for most of us BC (before cell-phones), and when you’d buy the pink’un at 5pm to get the results. I bought one and the headline was: ‘Two Murdererd at Boca/River Derby’. Even for someone who had lived opposite Stamford Bridge in the 70s this was disturbing stuff. To my relief about two hours later Tamsin turned up. Did she know what had happened? No, fortunately, but on a beautiful afternoon she’d been in the stands and noticed it was raining. She looked to the skies to see the opposition stands on the tier above them engaged in an orgy of mass spitting. I can’t remember the result” – Stephen Boxer.
Re: ‘Chelsea 4-4 Manchester City: a comic-book explosion of chaos and screams’ (Monday’s Football Daily). Really?!!! A spoiler right in my inbox? C’mon man it’s hard enough” – Alvar Sirlin.
Shouldn’t England’s upcoming two games be labeled post-qualifiers? Or practice matches. Or pointless wastes of time, energy and CO2 emissions?” – Clive Stone.
Odd looking at yesterday’s Memory Lane (full email edition): a line of rigid, completely immobile frames, featuring pictures of Kewell, Owen, Henchoz, and Hyypia, behind which there was the actual Igor Biscan. Oh wait” – Adam Smith (and no other Biscan-bashers).
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Stephen Boxer, who gets a copy of United with Dad by Simon Lloyd, published by Pitch Publishing. Visit their brilliant football book store here.
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