The U.S. girls’s nationwide workforce capped a with a 2-1 win over the Netherlands on Tuesday.
They accomplished an unbeaten first half-year below , even with out their prolific entrance three, Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson.
On a bitterly chilly evening in The Hague, on the finish of an extended, wearying season, with stars resting, they took the sector for a pleasant stuffed with built-in caveats and excuses — and refused to make use of them. As a substitute, they got here again from a purpose right down to beat the Dutch, and solidify themselves again .
Their efficiency, although, was additionally a well timed reminder that their didn’t remedy .
They have been outshot 23-5. They have been outplayed and at occasions overwhelmed by Dutch passing and positional play. They seemed like a workforce that should enhance and innovate to stay on the prime — and their coach appears to get this.
“The Olympics,” Hayes stated in October, “type an important foundation, and an important basis for us. Nevertheless it’s not a future-predictor for achievement.”
, because the highest-paid coach in girls’s soccer historical past, and nearly immediately revived the USWNT. She restored self-belief. She . She .
“The poise, the calmness, the boldness that we’ve had and nonetheless have is instantly associated to how our supervisor is,” U.S. captain Lindsey Horan stated final week.
All of that shone by means of on the Paris Olympics. It propelled the Individuals to 6 straight wins and gold. Nevertheless it didn’t utterly erase the explanations that the USWNT had . Smith, Swanson and Rodman, the papered over technical and tactical deficiencies that have been evident all through the knockout rounds — and once more, much more so, on Tuesday within the Netherlands.
And Hayes understands this.
She has spent the previous few months reviewing the Olympics, then growing a complete “technique” for the 2027 World Cup/2028 Olympic cycle.
She has certainly devoured movie, and analyzed information. She’s hopped from Zoom to Zoom, discussing her takeaways with workers in any respect ranges of U.S. Soccer. In January, at a convention alongside a first-of-its-kind Futures Camp for younger gamers, she’ll current her plan for the subsequent three years and past, “in order that we are able to embark on the subsequent steps of our journey,” she stated.
In October, chatting with reporters, she previewed her plan.
“Tactically,” Hayes stated, “we’ll evolve.”
The evolution, in fact, might be multi-faceted. The plan should be multi-pronged. Hayes’ broader, federation-wide imaginative and prescient is to “construct a method that is centered round a feminine lens,” off the sector and on it. Final week, she additionally hinted at dipping her into the even-wider American soccer ecosystem. It’s “thriving,” she stated, on the grassroots, faculty and professional ranges; however it’s . “Unifying that below a girls’s soccer growth technique might be the one factor that is absent,” Hayes stated
That, it appears, is her long-term purpose. Within the brief time period, she’ll give attention to “a coherent technique that is achievable for us, beginning with what we do on the nationwide workforce stage.”
She is going to, presumably, attempt to align the USWNT’s wants with the best way teenagers are coached and taught by youth nationwide groups.
She is going to name new waves of gamers into her senior workforce, in an effort to broaden the participant pool.
She . On Saturday, she trotted out unproven gamers in entrance of 78,000 followers at Wembley Stadium in London; they earned a 0-0 draw. Three days later, one of many newcomers, Yazmeen Ryan, equipped Gotham FC teammate Lynn Williams with the USWNT’s winner.
Lynn Williams turns it round and the USWNT lead 2-1 👊
Watch the match dwell on TNT, truTV and Max 📺
Hayes certainly is aware of, although, that they’ve an extended method to go.
If not for a and 6 colossal saves from retiring goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, , they’d have misplaced Tuesday to the Netherlands.
They’ve been revived, however they haven’t but been remodeled. That’s Hayes’ subsequent process on the helm of the USWNT.