ATLANTA -- When Emma Hayes took the job as U.S. women's national team manager in 2024, she took it head-on, knowing the clock was ticking toward the 2024 Summer Olympics. She and the USWNT achieved quick success and made history by returning to the top of the Olympic podium for the first time since 2012, with roughly 80 days officially on the job. After the gold medal win, and between planning for the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup and the 2028 Olympics, Hayes has done more than coach players; she has built an ecosystem dedicated to the growth, support, and development of women and young girls in soccer.
This isn't exactly breaking news. Hayes has been vocal about her broader ambitions in her current role to push the game forward. She launched the strategy "The WNT Way" in 2025, a vision that began by centering women at the heart of all processes in U.S.
Before the USWNT gathered for training camps ahead of friendlies against Spain, Hayes and U.S. Soccer co-hosted the 2026 herLENS conference, a two-day event highlighting the work already underway with sessions on research and data. Whenever building culture, part of that is through developing and educating the principles, and in the second edition of the conference, Hayes and other session speakers did just that, and spoke with media about the importance of normalizing goals and processes through the lens of a woman.
"I know that the legacy of the WNT, the impact of the WNT, the importance of the WNT to everyone across this country goes beyond just the team that wins on the field and winning gold medals and winning World Cups, because of course, winning is an important part of the culture," Hayes said in her remarks at the conference. "But as far as I'm concerned, winning is about creating a world so that by the time we get to four, five years down the road in 2031 ... That we have not only just reimagined that world, but we've built it collectively, so that everyone across the landscape is in a better position." A familiar theme over the second edition of the conference was Hayes and her staff's forward-thinking approach.
Everyone is tapped into the "Female 360" approach, which includes plenty of player surveying, one-on-ones, and individual programs for each athlete, including overall health check-ins from hydration to nutrition strategies and menstrual cycle tracking to help players improve performance and overall health. While Hayes was vocal in 2025 about building and implementing women-focused research and support for athletes, it's been a bigger vision with her since her days with Chelsea. She points to the 2016 FA Cup final loss with Chelsea, a 1-0 defeat against rivals Arsenal at Wembley Stadium, as a turning point that drove her toward a more women-centered approach to game prep and individual player planning.
She noted the players' slower reaction time and coordination that day and that it looked like she was watching a group of people separated from their bodies. "I remember at the end of the game, one of my staff saying, 'You know, we have the vast majority of our players are in phase four, beginning of phase one.' I was like, 'What does that mean? And then I, honestly, my own, like, awakening was, I don't even think I understand my own period,'" Hayes quipped.
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