AMERICA’S BEST COACH IN PARIS: EMMA HAYES, WHO SEES GOLD IN A MAD RUSH

She arrived months ago and quickly has Team USA positioned to win an Olympics championship, wanting her team to “suffer” while forming strong bonds that keep a women’s soccer initiative atop the world

     PARIS — She wants her team to ache and agonize, a go-back to evil times when American coaches were humanly wretched. Who is Emma Hayes? Why did she run a mainstay such as Alex Morgan off the U.S. women’s national team? Why tell players about the “pain cave,” wanting them to devour their ugliest and meanest feelings in games that equate soccer to the lower world?

     “I mean, come on, you’re never going to get anyone with a personality like me,” she said after beginning the job only a few months ago.

     And how does that personality explain the torture, showing her team a video this week of an ultramarathoner who is dying in her 100-mile persecutions? “I could see today that players are having to dig to like the deepest place within them,” Hayes said. “I’ve said this all along: The reason I want to play the team together for as long as possible is because I want them to develop. I want them to suffer. I want them to have that moment, because I do not believe you can win without it.”

     Suffering? Their pain should lead to gold medals.

     In a stunningly quick span, Hayes has led the Americans to the championship game of the Olympics. She already has become a legendary leader, admired by her players far more than loathed. They cherish how she feeds a power of freedom through what she terms a holistic approach. It works, so much more about Emma than grates of the past, even if the U.S. Soccer Federation went to Chelsea FC to help a team that hasn’t won a major event in five years. She was “born in England but made in America,” arriving for a firing by the NWSL’s Chicago Red Stars before growing up in London with massive success. If her magic continues, executives in all sports — female and male — will seek coaches of her ilk.

     “I think this team is firmly focused on creating a new history together,” said Hayes, in what sounds like a guarantee. “We’ve been building a really psychologically safe space for all of us. There are friendships that are really strong internally. There is a collective will.”

     Said goaltender Alyssa Naeher: “She’s somebody that is human, and she humanizes herself to the team and players. People respond well to that. She’s the kind of coach that you want to play for, you want to compete for. You can feel that she’s in your corner, and she’s not going to take it easy on anybody, that’s for sure.”

     To suddenly assume command involves using a consistent, compatible lineup. Hayes doesn’t tinker. She creates stars, including three forwards who attack and will be front and center Saturday against Brazil. Trinity Rodman has a world-famous father, Dennis. Mallory Swanson has a well-known husband, Dansby, a $177 million shortstop with the Chicago Cubs. And Sophia Smith won the semifinal with a goal. Hayes describes Naomi Girma as “the best defender I’ve ever seen.”

     You know them now.

     “I’ve said it from the beginning: connections help,” Hayes said. “I don’t believe we’d have gone through if we’d have made too many changes. It’s those relationships that are developing that are putting us in a situation against a world-class opponent in a very, very short space of time. I haven’t had much time to work with the whole squad. I’m still learning about everybody. You can’t just keep changing players. My philosophy is that the very best teams learn to play together first.”

     Said Rodman: “The way that she coaches is she doesn't want to change anybody's style. She wants everyone to be creative in their own ways, and she lets that happen while also trying to put her structure and her principles sprinkled in there. Allowing us to play free I think has been extremely successful for this team.”

     Years ago, Hayes took a college job at Iona that paid $30,000 a year. She suffered, too. “I remember those days fighting to stay in the country on different visas,” she said, “wondering if I'm going to get enough to pay the rent in the next upcoming block, to what am I going to do next?”

     It’s remarkable — considering the future and a glorious history — how the women’s side rules in American soccer when the men’s side still reeks. If Team USA wins gold in men’s basketball, Steve Kerr will be hailed as the keeper of billion-dollar egos and moods. But no one in Paris has gleamed like Emma Hayes, who will keep talking as we all listen up, while the touristy mobs in town adopt the best and brightest.

     “I want a drink,” she said after reaching the final.

     Let’s go suffer together.

     ###

     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.