As Emma Hayes gets started with the USWNT, ‘details come to life’

It was a quiet and impersonal process for Hayes, incongruous with her big personality.

So when she opened her first U.S. training camp here this week — the lead-up to her debut Saturday against South Korea — the 47-year-old Englishwoman made a point of learning more about her pupils as both players and people.

“I want to know where they’re from. I want to know how many siblings they’ve got,” Hayes said Friday. “It’s establishing the facts first. Then, when you got that little bit of basics, the interactions will start to happen, then opinions start to happen. Once opinions start to happen, we can start to go to the places we need. And this is just the beginning.”

Hayes said the orientation has been an “overload.” “There will be some tired brains, for sure.”

Defender Naomi Girma said Hayes arranged activities in large and small groups — “creating connections and understanding what motivates each of us.”

Hayes also arranged 15-minute meetings with each player. Because there is so much to do, she won’t be able to complete all of them until the team arrives in St. Paul, Minn., for the second friendly against South Korea on Tuesday.

“I don’t do fast friends,” Hayes said. “I want us to build the right things in the right moments.”

Hayes might not make fast friends, but her 6-year-old son, Harry, does. He and Charlie, forward Alex Morgan’s 4-year-old daughter, are buddies, “running all around the hotel,” Morgan said, smiling.

The soccer part seems to be coming along nicely, too.

“We had a bigger picture of what Emma wanted and what she was going to implement,” defender Tierna Davidson said, “and now we’re seeing how those details come to life.”

Hayes said the players have been “sponges, unbelievable sponges — no matter what we have thrown at them, they are taking it on and absorbing it. This team is desperate to improve.”

No program has won more major championships than the United States, but as the 2023 World Cup demonstrated, the world is catching up. Not only were the Americans eliminated at the earliest stage in their history — a round-of-16 exit that ended Vlatko Andonovski’s coaching tenure — but champion Spain and several others showed they have made immense strides.

The United States has not won the Olympic gold medal since 2012, stumbling in the quarterfinals in 2020 and semifinals in 2021. Hayes has about six weeks to prepare her new team for the group opener against Zambia on July 25 in Nice, France.

“We aren’t really results-focused right now,” forward Sophia Smith said. “It’s more process-focused. With that, results will come. Right now it’s just about getting the group together, getting the chemistry going and preparing us for the Olympics but for the future, too.”

Hayes’s broader aim is to win the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.

“You can see a clear focus on how she wants us to play, how she wants us to act, the culture,” midfielder Lindsey Horan said. “There is a very clear intention in everything that she is doing with us. She is making it as clear as possible for us and being patient as well, knowing it’s going to be a process for everyone.”

Hayes declined to go into specifics about the way she wants to play Saturday, saying, “There are lots of different things, but the differences are the details as opposed to major structural changes.”

The two matches against South Korea are the only tests before Hayes will select her 18-woman Olympic squad in late June. The team will then tune up for the Olympics with friendlies against Mexico on July 13 in Harrison, N.J., and against Costa Rica on July 16 in Washington.

“I have time,” Hayes said. “And this is an opportunity to learn about the players, learn about their tactical understanding, see where their technique is, expose them to a strategic setup that prepares us for tomorrow, first and foremost, and gets the players to understand the most important things that are required at the top, top level.”

Notes: In the first game of a doubleheader, the U.S. women’s deaf national team will make its home debut with a friendly vs. Australia (2 p.m. Eastern time on TruTV and Max). Its previous 38 matches (37-0-1) were played in tournaments abroad. The team is coached by Amy (Allmann) Griffin and Joy Fawcett, teammates on the first U.S. World Cup championship team (1991).