USWNT OLYMPIC ROSTER PROFILES: COACHES

The 2024 Olympics kick off at the end of the month, and the United States Women’s National Team are back in search of yet another medal. They have received medals in 6 of the 7 Olympics that have featured women’s football as a sport, and in 2024 the team heads to France - where they won the 2019 Women’s World Cup - to hopefully win their fifth gold medal.

As the Olympic roster was released last week, we are initiating a series of profiles, focusing on each position individually as well as the coaching staff. We will detail how they round out the USWNT as they get ready to take on the world. With the roster done, we move to the our final portion of the team: the coaching staff.

The staff is, of course, led by head coach Emma Hayes, who coached her first match for the team in person on June 1st. Hired in November, the legendary coach came over after a season where she led Chelsea FC Women to their 5th straight WSL title.

In the transition, Twila Kilgore was the bridge between the end of the Vlatko Andonovski era and the start of the Emma Hayes era, serving as interim coach from August 2023 until May. She was responsible for beginning the integration of the coaching philosophies that Emma Hayes desires from the USWNT, from formation and tactics to personnel call-ups. She remains the only holdover from Andonovski’s staff and serves as an assistant coach.

The rest of the staff are coaches and front office staff that arrive on the USWNT with Emma Hayes from Chelsea. Denise Reddy is an assistant coach, Suart Searle is the goalkeeper coach, Bart Caubergh serves as the USWNT program director and head of performance, Ferdia O’Hanrahan is a performance analyst, and Cameron Meighan is the opposition scout for the team.

But make no mistake, this is Emma Hayes’ team. She enters the Olympics with less pressure on her than that of her predecessor, mainly because she has only been a part of the team in full for one month. But, the pressure to win always exists with the United States Women’s National Team, and Emma Hayes will willingly embrace that challenge.

She has not shied away from making some tough decisions in her first full month on the job. She brought in Hal Hershfelt and Croix Bethune for the June window and named both to the alternates list. While both have played extremely well in their rookie seasons for the Washington Spirit, there is always a bit of an unknown that circles over bringing players who have just walked into the national team setup.

On the other side, probably the biggest decision she made was leaving Alex Morgan at home, deciding the legendary striker has not been in the form required to take a spot ahead of Crystal Dunn, Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, Jaedyn Shaw, and Mallory Swanson. Excluding Morgan from the roster seems like the end of an era and a message to the team: produce, or someone else could be called in ahead of you.

With her 18-player roster and 4 alternates, the signal is that versatility is in, and you need to not only possess it but also show you can be trusted with it. So many players are on the cusp of being regulars on the national team, and it feels like the competition will truly begin after the Olympics are done. Still for Emma Hayes, this is a chance for her to start her tenure on the United States Women’s National Team by earning the team its fifth gold medal. Any medal short of that may still be viewed by onlookers as a success, particularly with a loaded field. This may be the first Olympics that the USWNT don’t enter as the favorites and have to look up at a mountaintop that is guarded by several other teams.

It won’t be that in Hayes’ mind, though. She’s a coach that demands perfection and the top brilliance at every facet of the game. She’s not going to France to have a good time. She’s going there on a business trip, and the objective is to leave France dripping in gold.

2024-07-04T15:14:14Z dg43tfdfdgfd