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United States women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes has a goal much bigger than winning the 2027 World Cup.
Hayes has begun rolling out her strategy for “The WNT Way,” which she calls “a female blueprint to win and set the bar for the global game.” Hayes recently introduced the plans to her women’s national team staff at all levels, and she shared a presentation with a select group of reporters earlier this week.
Her vision had nothing to to do with on-field tactics, at least from a 10,000-foot view. The heart of the idea is viewing everything through “a female lens,” rather than accepting anything as a general truth because of how it is done in the men’s game, or even because it has historically been done in the women’s game (often one in the same problem, she noted).
“We always do this constant comparing to the men’s game. I don’t really care what they’re doing,” Hayes said, waving her hand dismissively on camera as she flipped between a brief presentation and self-deprecating jokes about her ability to use Zoom. “What works for us? And it’s about creating that more than anything else.”
Hayes said she has been working on the plan nonstop since the team’s Olympic gold medal triumph in August, a feat achieved in only her 10th game in charge. She can’t answer how long it will take to see the full effects of her vision, but she believes that the systems she will help put into place can maximize the current player pool and build a new generation of talent — on and off the field — that can keep the four-time World Cup champions and five-time Olympics champions at the top of the world pecking order for years to come.
Hayes said she has begun to strategize with her staff and the federation on how to tactically implement the plan. One of the core principles is to engage as many stakeholders as possible, with examples ranging from commercial buy-in from federation sponsor Nike, to advancement of medical research specific to the women’s game.
She spoke about the need for more female-specific training of coaches and staff through specifically designed coaching courses. These would include coaching education on the nuance differences in tactical approaches in the women’s game, like why more goals are scored from different places on the field in the women’s game, and why, by way of example, the expected goals (xG) model for the men’s game might not work perfectly for women.
Her examples also included making people in power better understand menstrual cycles and their effects on players, Hayes said while citing the high dropout rates of female athletes before age 14, and the link to them beginning their periods without enough support in sporting environments. She recalled personal memories as she spoke about the trauma girls experience when playing in white shorts, which are being phased out at the highest levels.
Hayes placed a particular emphasis on synergy between the national team and U.S. professional teams. She plans to soon assemble a professional game advisory board consisting of members of the U.S. Soccer Federation, National Women’s Soccer League, and USL Super League — with the possibility of NCAA or youth soccer representatives, too — to align on best practices on and off the field.
Cooperation from the professional ranks is a bare-minimum necessity to establishing a path toward success, she said.
Still, those entities only represent less than 1% of the wider women’s soccer world. The fractured U.S. youth soccer landscape and rapidly evolving college circuit have long been points of tension around player development. Establishing alignment even within an organization — let alone between two entities — can be difficult and time-consuming. Youth soccer organizations, where most players are spending most of their time developing, have sparred for decades. Currently, the ECNL and the Girls Academy are two major competing players in the girls soccer landscape.
Uniquely for a national team coach, Hayes has navigated plenty of that in past jobs, from her early days in the U.S. working Olympic Development Program (ODP) camps and coaching a relatively anonymous NCAA program at Iona College.
“I’m fully aware of the diverse makeup across the whole landscape, but we have to start somewhere,” Hayes said. “While it probably ordinarily makes sense to start at the youngest point, I have the most influence here first and will be able to get this part of the system right first.”
She’s also realistic enough to know that there’s a major task ahead to even get the upper echelon of the women’s game aligned. There is plenty of in-fighting and politics in the NWSL boardroom, too.
Development has been a major void for the NWSL since its inception in late 2012, too. There is still no formal academy structure or reserve league, and many teams still don’t even formally operate a youth-to-pro pyramid, with some relying on partnerships with local clubs.
Hayes said her plans for this longer-lasting legacy aren’t just about players, however. Coaching education is a big piece of the puzzle — having a women’s-specific Pro License (the highest coaching badge in the U.S.) and a separate coaching education department for women’s soccer are tangible examples she provided.
The trickledown effect through the years, she said, will be felt not only by future national team players, but through having better coaching, staff and administrators across all departments of women’s soccer organizations. Ideally, she said, that will result in everything from coaches who are more aware of their own male biases, to administrators who understand that women’s players might want to stay at a different hotel because they socialize differently in their off time, and marketing and communications professionals who understand the psychological effects of promoting an unflattering photo of a player.
“I’ve been through the whole ecosystem 1,000 times over, and I’ve listened to players 1,000 times over, coaches 1,000 times over,” Hayes said. “This is beyond just winning. We also want to develop a lot of female leadership, not just in coaching – in sport, but to do that in an intentional way.”
U.S. Soccer recently received a $30 million donation that will be spread out over the next five years to develop players and infrastructure in women’s soccer. Michele Kang — owner of the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, French powerhouse Olympique Lyonnais women, and London City Lionesses — made the donation. Kang has also been vocal about treating women’s athletes with a female-first approach and has rebuked the concept that women are small men.
Hayes said this passion project will not distract her from her primary tasks as head coach of the world’s most storied women’s soccer team. She has four training camps in the next five months to focus on building her team ahead of the 2027 World Cup, before a gap from July to October when she can resume big-picture plans. She was hired to win the 2027 World Cup, and she wants to help the U.S. co-host the 2031 World Cup. It’s all part of the bigger plan.
“I feel like I’ve worked on this my whole life,” she said. “It just came together when I came into this job.”
She said she surrounds herself with “integrators,” and she can delegate tasks knowing progress will be made.
“I just feel like it’s a lot easier for me to raise a lot of these questions in America than it was in England. Like, I can do that in the U.S. and do it in an intentional way with a federation behind me that is committed to raising awareness and keeping girls playing, keeping them in the sport, as well as providing world-class environments so we can win.”
How long will this ambitious process take to come to fruition? “How long’s a piece of string?” Hayes asked rhetorically.
“The impact of these things, I doubt, will be felt in its entirety until I’ve gone, but they, for sure, are going to be led by this country.”
