COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — New United States women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes must quickly overhaul a team coming off its worst World Cup finish in history last year. First, she quipped, she needed to learn everyone’s names.
Hayes took the microphone at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Friday for her first formal news conference as head coach, and she said there is one part of the team she wants to remain the same.
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“We all know the main ingredients of the American DNA, and that will not change under my stewardship,” Hayes said.
Speaking to reporters last week, Hayes partly defined that DNA as “the attitude towards performance and the expectation to give it everything you’ve got … managing pressure at the biggest stage, managing the badge on this jersey.”
Hayes said on Friday that she has been conducting 15-minute individual meetings with every player in camp, a process that will carry into next week as the team’s first training camp under its new coach continues. Getting to know players on and off the field “is where the overload has been,” she said.
“I don’t do fast friends,” Hayes said, underlying the pragmatic approach she keeps describing. “I want us to build the right things in the right…
