ST. PAUL, Minnesota — New United States women’s coach Emma Hayes continues to stress the need for external patience in her first weeks on the job, but on Monday at Allianz Field, she was definitive about one benchmark reached in that process: the failure of the 2023 World Cup is a thing of the past.
“I think the group is ready to move on,” Hayes said. “That’s what it feels like to me.”
Hayes watched from afar last summer as the USWNT exited the World Cup in the Round of 16, marking the program’s worst major-tournament finish in program history. In her role as an analyst, she was critical of a squad “massively short of creative talent.”
Now, after accepting the job of USWNT head coach in November and coaching her first camp beginning last week, Hayes oversees righting the ship.
“There’s been a lot of learnings since [the] last World Cup,” she said. “We always like to look at it externally, like these really fatal moments. From my perspective, I don’t believe they can grow without that. You need those setbacks. Sometimes, on the biggest stages, it’s not ideal, but the team wasn’t ready.
“But the expectation in this country is win every game, every week, every tournament, every trophy. It just isn’t going to work like that, I’m afraid. We have to adapt a…
