Emma Hayes hoping to reignite USWNT dominance at Paris 2024 - 'World does not fear USA'
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Published 23/05/2024 at 22:29 GMT
Emma Hayes has said that "the rest of the world do not fear the USA" as she approaches her first games in charge of the United States women’s national team ahead of the Olympics this summer. The former Chelsea manager took up the post following her final season in London, where she clinched a fifth straight Women's Super League title for The Blues.
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Emma Hayes’ first step to bringing the United States women’s national team back to the head of the international football table is at the Paris Olympics this summer.
For Hayes, a gold medal in France will be vital to reinstalling the “fear” that she says the side no longer instills in their opponents.
The former Chelsea manager spoke at a media roundtable at the National Women's Soccer League's offices in Manhattan on Thursday after arriving the day before and having named her first US squad on Tuesday.
"If we can perform at our best level, then we have a chance of doing things," Hayes said.
"But we've got work to do. The realities are that the world game is where it is, and the rest of the world do not fear the USA in the way that they once did and that's valid.
"It's our job to grasp quite quickly what we need to do to get close again to those levels."
Having narrowly escaped their group, the USA's last-16 elimination in last year’s World Cup was their worst finish at a major tournament. The side had won four of the last eight World Cups, including the last two. Until last year, they had never finished worse than third.
Her announcement as head coach came in November last year, having seen out the season with Chelsea, a team she built into one of the world’s best over 12 years. She signed off her historic tenure with a 6-0 rout of Manchester United to clinch the team’s fifth straight Women's Super League title.
Hayes announced her 23-player first squad on Tuesday, which includes two new faces in the form of Chicago Red Stars defender Sam Staab and Washington Spirit midfielder Hal Hershfelt.
Chelsea’s Catarina Macario and Emily Fox of Arsenal are two WSL players to make the squad, while Ajax’s 16-year-old Lily Yohannes receives her second call-up in search of her first cap.
The team will play South Korea on June 1 in Commerce City, Colorado, before a rematch on June 4 in St. Paul, Minnesota, after which the 23-player squad will be cut to 18 for the Games.
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