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Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Emma Hayes' ‘astronomical' year as USWNT head coach – but this is only the first step
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — On June 1, 2024, as the U.S. women's national team prepared to take the field against South Korea in Colorado, head coach Emma Hayes stared down a stadium tunnel swirling with sound. Staff were banging on the walls to hype up the players, and fans roared with similar anticipation. The heat and humidity, combined with the mile-high altitude, were brutal — especially for an Englishwoman who hadn't known how to properly hydrate for those conditions. Advertisement It was Hayes' first game since accepting the position in November 2023, and she was nervous. She'd spent 12 years managing Chelsea and had no idea how an American crowd would respond to someone 'from the outside,' as she described it. Still healing from the disappointment of their earliest World Cup exit in USWNT history, her new side were also less than two months out from the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Hayes felt 'desperate to do well for the team.' They beat South Korea 4-0, with two goals each from forward Mallory Swanson and defender Tierna Davidson. Seventy days later on August 10, the USWNT became Olympic gold medalists with a 1-0 victory over Brazil. And in the year since her nerve-wracking debut, Hayes has uprooted and overhauled the women's program in ways that feel revolutionary, inviting more new players to national team camp than any coach before her and revamping the U-23s to create a sustainable and cohesive pipeline of talent. Now, with two more years to go until the 2027 World Cup in Brazil, Hayes remains a champion of development and deliberation, choosing process over perfection as she continues to build. Thursday night offered a poetic checkpoint for what has changed and what has remained the same. Hayes and the USWNT were back at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, and the final score was again 4-0, this time against a depleted Republic of Ireland. Swanson is pregnant and Davidson is out with an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury; this match instead featured goals from defender Avery Patterson, midfielders Sam Coffey and Rose Lavelle, and forward Alyssa Thompson. Advertisement Coffey and Lavelle, who just returned to USWNT camp after an ankle injury kept her away since December, are two of just four players on Hayes' first roster as head coach who also played against Ireland. It's a testament to Hayes' dedication to experimenting and implementing a new standard for who receives an invitation to camp. Though Coffey earned her first USWNT call up in September 2022 under former head coach Vlatko Andonovski, she did not make the 2023 World Cup roster. Since Hayes stepped in, she has been a consistent fixture for the national team at No. 6. Thursday's match against Ireland was her 36th cap and she scored her third goal for the United States. 'She's had such a profound impact on me as a person and a player,' Coffey said of Hayes after Thursday's match. 'I think she, in many ways, has just given me such confidence and belief in myself to know what I can do and to help the team in any way possible. I think the amount that she's done in a year is astronomical.' Coffey added that she and her teammates 'still have so much that we want to do in so many ways.' Advertisement 'We want to grow and every camp, every game we have is just another step that we get to take together,' she added, 'and so we're loving her.' Thompson's journey with the national team has been similarly nonlinear, even under Hayes. While she made Andonovski's World Cup roster, she seldom played, and was not chosen by Hayes to compete for an Olympic medal in Paris. Her standout club performances since with Angel City in the NWSL earned her another invitation, and she has since solidified her spot on the USWNT. 'I feel like I've grown so much as a player,' Thompson said after the game Thursday night of Hayes' impact. 'I'm just understanding the game more. In the beginning, there was a lot of information that I wanted to take in, and now I'm really understanding it. I feel like it comes a little bit second nature. Just being able to keep implementing things and working on my game really helped and it came from Emma coming in and just helping our team in that way.' Hayes was similarly effusive in her post-match press conference. Advertisement 'I know you're probably bored of me, but I just love them all,' she said. 'I said to them today, I don't want them to think that I take for granted the trust that they place in me to coach them. I'm so grateful for how vulnerable they are to let me do that and, yeah, I just love them.' One year into the job, Hayes has called up 27 players to the senior team — which, of course, required tough decisions and frank conversations with those who lost their spots. Hayes' first major decision came when she announced her 18-player roster for the Olympics, which did not include USWNT legend Alex Morgan. Her omission marked the first time since 2008 that Morgan would not compete with the U.S. in a major tournament. It was a ripping off of a band-aid that sent shockwaves through the world of women's soccer and made clear the extent to which Hayes was willing to endure discomfort in order to manifest her vision. Morgan announced her second pregnancy and retirement last September, having played no part in the U.S.'s gold medal run. And Hayes kept tinkering. Sometimes it was out of necessity as a result of injuries or pregnancies, but largely to ensure players were in the best environments for their growth. The Olympic group has not all played together since leaving France, and two of those gold medalists, Korbin Albert and Jaedyn Shaw, have recently been moved to the U-23s to continue learning. Advertisement 'It's a reminder that you have to develop a playing pool that's capable, and when you're facing top opponents across the world that have Champions League experience, they have Nations League experience, they have cap accumulation (with the) under-20s, under-17s, we have a lot of catching up to do and to close that gap,' Hayes said. 'Our program has been really clear, especially with the introduction of our under-23 program.' Hayes would have been justified in coasting after last summer's accomplishment, at least for a little while; winning medals in major international tournaments affords you that. But if anything, she's become more dogmatic about the changes she wants to implement, the gaps she seeks to close between starters and bench players on the senior year, and also between the senior team and U-23s. 'I feel like we're back on track, but I will urge caution with it — and I say that because I'm so respectful of what England and Spain and Germany and Brazil in particular are doing in the global game. There is no gap between one, two, three, four, five in the world,' Hayes said Wednesday. 'We have to make every moment count for us to put ourselves in the best place possible to compete.' This article originally appeared in The Athletic. US Women's national team, NWSL, Women's Soccer 2025 The Athletic Media Company
Newsweek
02-07-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
How USWNT Supported Female Entrepreneurs After Winning Equal Pay Battle
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Three years ago, the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team reached a historic collective bargaining agreement with the U.S. Soccer Federation that guaranteed equal pay and better working conditions for both the women's team and the men's team. As the women's soccer players fought for equitable working conditions, they also found a profound way to give back by funding a program to support female entrepreneurs. "That economic justice fight is something that's a bit of an extension of our pay equity fight," Tierna Davidson, USWNT center back and current president of the USWNT Players Association, told Newsweek. "We wanted to partner with someone that was established in that space and could help us help small businesses get on their feet, whether it was starting or continuing to invest in their business." That partner was Kiva, the social venture firm that provides microloans to women and minority-owned businesses across the world. Through Kiva, the Players Association set up a revolving loan fund and a crowdfunding platform to allow women's soccer fans to support female entrepreneurs around the country. To date, over 5,100 businesses have received loans through this program, totaling $400,000. The initiative won a Gold Halo Award in 2023 for its social impact success and has a goal to lend out $2.5 million as the revolving fund grows. Davidson, who plays professionally for the National Women's Soccer League's Gotham FC, won a gold medal in the 2024 Olympic Games on Team USA and was also on the bargaining committee as the USWNT Players Association sought out its new contract in the wake of the 2019 lawsuit that kicked off the fight for equal pay. She was one of the youngest players on the 2019 squad that won Team USA's fourth World Cup as fans called attention to the players' cause with chants for equal pay. U.S. Women's Soccer center back Tierna Davidson, 26, is the president of the USWNT Players Association. U.S. Women's Soccer center back Tierna Davidson, 26, is the president of the USWNT Players Association. Getty Images "Every conversation with U.S. Soccer's legal team, we always had at least one player represented on it," Annie Reid, director of Strategic Partnerships and Business for the USWNT Players Association, told Newsweek. "They were really, really involved." Stars like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan fought for equal pay, even though their careers would end before the majority of the improvements in pay and working conditions took place. "With that win, that was a long time coming, players started to think about ... Where else do we want to have impact? There's a variety of ways that we at the Players Association, with our players, have worked to have that impact," Reid said. Reid shared that the larger economic justice mission also includes improving access to youth sports, where pay-for-play can prevent people from earning opportunities in sports, and driving equal pay for female athletes around the world. "Looking at the steps that other national teams have taken with their own women's teams to improve their working conditions [and] improve their pay to more model their men's side is so important," Davidson said. "That was such a large part of the battle as well as understanding that it wasn't just for us, but it was for national teams globally. We've seen that drastically improve over the past couple of years. It's super evident, too, in how competitive the women's game is." They've also improved the moneymaking potential of the name, image, and likeness of their players by driving sales of merchandise. Despite ongoing pay inequality globally, women's teams around the world have also pushed for better pay and working conditions as a result of USWNT's success. "These women are using their platform to talk about gender equity, economic justice, equal pay. These are all systemic problems, not just in sports, but throughout many different industries," Tess Murphy, director of corporate partnerships for Kiva, told Newsweek. "They understood what economic justice and empowerment meant for them, and they wanted to extend that opportunity to other women around the country." Six months after the signing of this collective bargaining agreement, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Equal Pay for Team USA Act, guaranteeing equal pay for men and women across all Olympic sports. Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a signal of the broader impact of the USWNT's battle. "I ... want to thank heroes like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, who brought that case against U.S. Soccer," Cantwell said. "U.S. women's soccer led the charge after winning the World Cup and making it clear to everyone that women athletes deserve equal pay." Kiva's data suggests that female small-business owners have a high community impact but are underserved in access to funding. These loans help them make key investments in starting or growing their business. Jimbi Mboob's salon in Madison, Wisconsin. Jimbi Mboob's salon in Madison, Wisconsin. Kiva One such business owner is Jimbi Mboob, who owns Smiling Coast Beauty Salon in Madison, Wisconsin. Through Kiva and its USWNT partnership, she secured a $14,500 loan to double the size of her store, make interior improvements and invest in social media for marketing. "My credit wasn't that great, and I have four kids," Mboob said. "Resources were limited. If I could get the resources to start up, getting my own chairs and booths, it will be better. So I used that to buy chairs and space that I rented for a few months just to get me on track." Mboob shared that she's hiring people to help them get into the field of braiding and has also hosted community events, including a Juneteenth youth function that centered around hair care. She said that she would have never had the opportunity to expand her presence or give back without this loan. "It's a lot to deal with, but through these little resources ... I'm able to get more clients coming in through my door, and I'm able to extend that [work opportunity] to other women like me," Mboob said. "I feel like I'm not only benefiting, those people benefit, too, and the community that I'm serving benefits." The USWNT-Kiva partnership focused on supporting small businesses in cities where they were playing. They've also set up a small business fund for businesses impacted by the wildfires in Southern California. Many USWNT members, like Morgan, have their own business ventures. Their challenging personal experiences in the marketing and sponsorship world, despite being popular pro athletes, helped them realize the need to boost women-owned businesses, especially because they do not get as much funding or support from the financial services industry. "Even with their name and the money that they have, they saw that there is a tougher time for a business to get off the ground, particularly for women and for BIPOC owners. They have experienced that themselves," Reid said, emphasizing that challenges earning branding and sponsorship deals for the USWNT Players Association and its members is another example of the business barriers that the players faced. "Their thought is, If I'm experiencing this as the known name that I have, what is that like for your average person?" The players embraced the larger impact they had the potential to make. "We understood that the fight for pay equity was not just for us," Davidson said. "It's not just for our own benefit, but it's also for the benefit of many women out there, of many individuals looking to us as an inspiration." For Davidson, the responsibilities of being on the bargaining committee and now president of the USWNTPA are certainly a lot to add to a professional athlete's loaded schedule, but she said she fell in love with learning about the work that goes on behind the scenes to operate a high-level sports team. "It was really interesting to be able to look under the metaphorical hood of the PA and of the Federation and kind of see the inner workings that didn't have to do so much with soccer but a little bit more of the logistical side of things and understanding how much work goes into planning," Davidson said. "I take it as a responsibility, but I also get a lot of joy from it." "They really wanted to use their platform of both their name ... but also their social media platform and their wide reach to tell this story of economic empowerment and of how hard it is to be a woman-owned small business," Murphy said. The USWNT has a friendly matchup against Canada on July 2 in Washington, D.C., kicking off at 7:30 p.m.
New York Times
27-06-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Emma Hayes' ‘astronomical' year as USWNT head coach – but this is only the first step
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — On June 1, 2024, as the U.S. women's national team prepared to take the field against South Korea in Colorado, head coach Emma Hayes stared down a stadium tunnel swirling with sound. Staff were banging on the walls to hype up the players, and fans roared with similar anticipation. The heat and humidity, combined with the mile-high altitude, were brutal — especially for an Englishwoman who hadn't known how to properly hydrate for those conditions. Advertisement It was Hayes' first game since accepting the position in November 2023, and she was nervous. She'd spent 12 years managing Chelsea and had no idea how an American crowd would respond to someone 'from the outside,' as she described it. Still healing from the disappointment of their earliest World Cup exit in USWNT history, her new side were also less than two months out from the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Hayes felt 'desperate to do well for the team.' They beat South Korea 4-0, with two goals each from forward Mallory Swanson and defender Tierna Davidson. Seventy days later on August 10, the USWNT became Olympic gold medalists with a 1-0 victory over Brazil. And in the year since her nerve-wracking debut, Hayes has uprooted and overhauled the women's program in ways that feel revolutionary, inviting more new players to national team camp than any coach before her and revamping the U-23s to create a sustainable and cohesive pipeline of talent. Now, with two more years to go until the 2027 World Cup in Brazil, Hayes remains a champion of development and deliberation, choosing process over perfection as she continues to build. Thursday night offered a poetic checkpoint for what has changed and what has remained the same. Hayes and the USWNT were back at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, and the final score was again 4-0, this time against a depleted Republic of Ireland. Swanson is pregnant and Davidson is out with an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury; this match instead featured goals from defender Avery Patterson, midfielders Sam Coffey and Rose Lavelle, and forward Alyssa Thompson. Coffey and Lavelle, who just returned to USWNT camp after an ankle injury kept her away since December, are two of just four players on Hayes' first roster as head coach who also played against Ireland. It's a testament to Hayes' dedication to experimenting and implementing a new standard for who receives an invitation to camp. Advertisement Though Coffey earned her first USWNT call up in September 2022 under former head coach Vlatko Andonovski, she did not make the 2023 World Cup roster. Since Hayes stepped in, she has been a consistent fixture for the national team at No. 6. Thursday's match against Ireland was her 36th cap and she scored her third goal for the United States. 'She's had such a profound impact on me as a person and a player,' Coffey said of Hayes after Thursday's match. 'I think she, in many ways, has just given me such confidence and belief in myself to know what I can do and to help the team in any way possible. I think the amount that she's done in a year is astronomical.' Coffey added that she and her teammates 'still have so much that we want to do in so many ways.' 'We want to grow and every camp, every game we have is just another step that we get to take together,' she added, 'and so we're loving her.' Thompson's journey with the national team has been similarly nonlinear, even under Hayes. While she made Andonovski's World Cup roster, she seldom played, and was not chosen by Hayes to compete for an Olympic medal in Paris. Her standout club performances since with Angel City in the NWSL earned her another invitation, and she has since solidified her spot on the USWNT. 'I feel like I've grown so much as a player,' Thompson said after the game Thursday night of Hayes' impact. 'I'm just understanding the game more. In the beginning, there was a lot of information that I wanted to take in, and now I'm really understanding it. I feel like it comes a little bit second nature. Just being able to keep implementing things and working on my game really helped and it came from Emma coming in and just helping our team in that way.' Hayes was similarly effusive in her post-match press conference. Advertisement 'I know you're probably bored of me, but I just love them all,' she said. 'I said to them today, 'I don't want them to think that I take for granted the trust that they place in me to coach them'. I'm so grateful for how vulnerable they are to let me do that and, yeah, I just love them.' One year into the job, Hayes has called up 27 players to the senior team — which, of course, required tough decisions and frank conversations with those who lost their spots. Hayes' first major decision came when she announced her 18-player roster for the Olympics, which did not include USWNT legend Alex Morgan. Her omission marked the first time since 2008 that Morgan would not compete with the U.S. in a major tournament. It was a ripping off of a band-aid that sent shockwaves through the world of women's soccer and made clear the extent to which Hayes was willing to endure discomfort in order to manifest her vision. Morgan announced her second pregnancy and retirement last September, having played no part in the U.S.'s gold medal run. And Hayes kept tinkering. Sometimes it was out of necessity as a result of injuries or pregnancies, but largely to ensure players were in the best environments for their growth. The Olympic group has not all played together since leaving France, and two of those gold medalists, Korbin Albert and Jaedyn Shaw, have recently been moved to the U-23s to continue learning. 'It's a reminder that you have to develop a playing pool that's capable, and when you're facing top opponents across the world that have Champions League experience, they have Nations League experience, they have cap accumulation (with the) Under 20s, Under 17s, we have a lot of catching up to do and to close that gap,' Hayes said. 'Our program has been really clear, especially with the introduction of our under-23 program.' Hayes would have been justified in coasting after last summer's accomplishment, at least for a little while; winning medals in major international tournaments affords you that. But if anything, she's become more dogmatic about the changes she wants to implement, the gaps she seeks to close between starters and bench players on the senior year, and also between the senior team and U-23s. 'I feel like we're back on track, but I will urge caution with it — and I say that because I'm so respectful of what England and Spain and Germany and Brazil in particular are doing in the global game. There is no gap between one, two, three, four, five in the world,' Hayes said Wednesday. 'We have to make every moment count for us to put ourselves in the best place possible to compete.'
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Tierna Davidson, Gotham FC star, out for season with injury
The NWSL season is over for Gotham FC captain Tierna Davidson. Davidson, 26, who plays defense for Gotham FC suffered a torn ACL in her left knee during her team's match against the Houston Dash on Friday, March 28, and will be placed on the season-ending injury list, her team has announced. "We are heartbroken for Tierna," said Yael Averbuch West, the general manager and head of soccer operations at Gotham FC. "Our club will do everything we can to support her through this recovery and rehabilitation process. We know she will come back stronger than ever." See on Instagram "In: Matching scars Out: my left ACL," Davidson posted on her Instagram today. "In all seriousness, I feel so fortunate to have the support of my family, teammates and club throughout this process. The beauty of life is its unpredictable nature. While I've found myself on the adverse side of this unpredictability at the moment, I know this experience will be another colorful chapter of my journey. I have no doubt this year will bring me unexpected joys despite this setback." Last year, with Davidson, Gotham FC finished third in the NWSL with 17 wins, five draws, and four losses. They lost in the league semifinals to the Washington Spirit in penalty kicks. In 65 appearances for the USWNT, she has 3 goals and seven assists, and won the 2019 Women's World Cup and a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. See on Instagram Davidson, who recently got married to her former Stanford teammate, Alison Jahansouz, is one of the few out players currently on the U.S. National Women's Team. She recently spoke about what it feels like to represent the U.S. right now when the LGBTBQ+ community is under such heavy attack from the current presidential administration. "It's always such an honor to play for this team and to represent this country, but it's kind of hard to grapple with what country am I representing right now? Like am I proud of what our country's doing and who we are?" she told The Women's Game podcast. "And in times like this I think about that more, and how this team has been able to represent out community and been able to push for rights for many different minority groups. That is something that I take with me whenever I put this jersey on is the importance of someone being able to see me in this jersey and say, 'Oh, that's someone like me, and I can do that as well.' I want people to look at our team and say 'that is representative of America,' the queerness, the people of color, the strong women, that is what our country is about, and to be able to see that representation on this team is so important."
NBC News
02-04-2025
- Sport
- NBC News
Soccer star Tierna Davidson out for season with torn ACL, replaced on USWNT for Brazil rematch
Gotham FC captain Tierna Davidson tore her ACL and will not play for the U.S. women 's national soccer team in the Saturday's game against Brazil. Davidson, 26, went down during a match against the Houston Dash on Friday, grabbing her left leg in non-contact play as she attempted to block an opposing player. She cried as she walked off the field before halftime, prompting concern from spectators. Gotham announced Wednesday that Davidson injured her left anterior cruciate ligament and has been placed on the season-ending injury list just three games into the season. Yael Averbuch West, Gotham general manager, said the team was "heartbroken" for the captain. "Our club will do everything we can to support her through this recovery and rehabilitation process," West said. "We know she will come back stronger than ever." Angel City's Gisele Thompson, 19, was called up to replace Davidson on the national team after an impressive showing at the SheBelieves Cup earlier this year. She'll join her old sister, Alyssa, in just her third appearance for the senior national team as they play against Brazil on Saturday at SoFi Stadium. The game is an international friendly match, but many see it as a chance for Brazil to seek redemption after falling short to the U.S. in the Olympic final last year. This is Davidson's second ACL injury after the defender tore her right ligament in 2022, leading to a roughly yearlong recovery that kept her off the USWNT roster for the 2023 World Cup. Davidson posted a statement to her Instagram, joking "In: Matching scars Out: my left ACL." 'The beauty of life is its unpredictable nature,' Davidson wrote. 'While I've found myself on the adverse side of this unpredictability at the moment, I know this experience will be another colorful chapter of my journey.' Studies show women in sports are two to eight times more likely to tear their ACLs than men, according to Yale Medicine. The difference plagues female athletics and, in particular, women's soccer. Part of the increased risk is due to the female pelvis being wider, changing the mechanics of the legs, Yale Medicine reported. Women also have less muscle around the knee, and fluctuating hormone cycles can contribute to the increased risk to their ACLs. One of the ways trainers and athletes have tried to prevent injury is by engaging in exercise regimes to strengthen those muscles. A newer tactic being considered is redesigning soccer cleats to take into consideration women's physiology rather than the current shoes that are based on men's cleats. In a report last year, U.K. parliament's Women and Equalities Committee described the "slow and disparate response" to women's ACL injuries as a sign of the "systemic gender inequality in sports and exercise research." "While there are positive signs of progress in the sports and exercise research sector, fundamental change is required to achieve equality of attention to health and physiology-related issues affecting women in sport," Caroline Nokes, chair of the committee, said. The U.K.'s women's league announced last year, following the report, that it was one of the participants of Project ACL. The project is a three-year study focused on reducing women's ACL injuries.
