the emma hayes era is here, what did we learn (if anything) from her first match on the sideline

Not gonna lie, waiting over six months for your new head coach to stand on the sideline was weird. Twila Kilgore took the helm after the disastrous 2023 World Cup, and according to then eventual head coach Emma Hayes, helped to implement structural foundations within the squad. Now that we’ve had a few games under Kilgore, including an abbreviated SheBelieves Cup, it was time to see the team with Hayes finally on the sideline.

It may seem slightly silly to overanalyze a manager’s first 90 minutes, especially after a whirlwind media tour and only four days of training, but it’s also true that there’s a whole Olympic tournament next month. Some stuff will have to wait, but a lot has to get done now, which adds an element of urgency and intrigue into decisions being made.

For me, the big question with the USWNT ever since Sam Mewis’ knee betrayed her was the midfield. The first midfield structure under Hayes didn’t look dissimilar on paper, Coffey and Horan lined up as a double pivot. But during play things were more fluid, and that was noticeable in the first and last goals of the game.

Goal #1 - Mallory Swanson

For the first official goal of the Emma Hayes Era, Lindsey Horan joined a front six that already included both fullbacks.

All four forwards are high, with only Rodman (out of frame) outside the width of the box, and both fullbacks were high, with Nighswonger the more narrow and advanced to fill space on the weak side. It’s tough to break down a low block, but if you’re brave enough to commit numbers, it is possible.

But it’s not just throwing players forward and hoping it all works out. The cool part about Mal’s first goal is that the USWNT broke their crossing habit to play quickly, and most importantly, centrally.

Horan is still involved, but instead of Girma trying to clip the ball to her over the top, which is a thing we saw a lot in recent years, they instead use her run in behind the line to create space. The threat of that movement forced defenders to take a few steps back to cover a potential aerial threat, and it created a pocket in front of their central defense, where two of the most dangerous attacking players on the pitch were waiting to take advantage.

This is the kind of stuff I have wanted to see. Prioritizing getting the ball to Horan over players like Soph Smith and Mallory Swanson, or Trinity Rodman, or any of the other outrageous attackers, always felt like hustling backwards. Horan as Plan B or C makes a lot more sense, but the real fun is in using that threat as a disguise to execute Plan A.

Center back Naomi Girma, who hilariously was at the top of the attacking third, fizzed a ball into Soph Smith’s feet. It’s fair that no one really thinks of Smith as a target forward with elite holdup play, but the characteristics that make her difficult to mark still apply when the ball is played to her feet in that capacity. She has great balance, is strong as hell, and can manipulate the ball and/or defenders in tight spaces.

Here she smartly shielded the defender and floated into space instead of immediately attacking it, which would have collapsed the defense. This patience signaled Swanson to make her diagonal run. Mal takes a couple jog-like steps then darts as soon as she sees an angle. Smith put the ball in space and Mal did the rest.

The importance of this being the first goal of the Hayes era seemed important not just in that the hockey assist goes to a center back pushing really high, or even the Smith and Swanson combination. It was in attacking a low block centrally, and finding a way to get the ball through the backline, even when the initial defensive setup left little space in which to do so.

Goal #4 - Mallory Swanson, again

Mal’s second goal was fun as well. Like her first, it starts with an initial forward pass from a defender, this time Casey Krueger from right back. The intended recipient of the pass is notable too, because it was Crystal Dunn, lined up as a forward for the USWNT – one of the things Crystal Dunn Appreciators were told couldn’t be done.

The pass was cut out by good positioning from Dunn’s defender, but she immediately applied counterpressure to force an errant pass that Rose Lavelle pounced on. This rest of the way this goal was constructed reminded me of the scene in The Lion King where Rafiki forced Simba to look at some hard truths. At the end he sees Mufasa in the clouds, who he tells him ‘I dunno what kinda life you’re trying to live but you’re a king’ and punctuates it with “Remember who you are.”

A significant amount of Emma Hayes’ mid-match directives were to play quicker, both moving the ball more quickly and being quicker to react or create problems. It’s been frustrating to watch the USWNT not lean into its strengths, seemingly somehow buying into the idea that they should be slow and methodical instead. There’s a time and a place for that, but these players are born in the fires of chaos and the NWSL, they want to move and move quickly.

It also means they’re comfortable processing information at elevated speeds, and making decisions at top speed too. From the moment the pass was within Lavelle’s sights, she and the entire front line turned the opportunity into a track meet. It is one of the team’s greatest strengths that they don’t need a numbers advantage to have an advantage.

A USWNT 4-on-4 in transition can be just as devastating as a top team’s 3-on-4, and this was an example.

Unfortunately for the recovering defender, the space created by her failed slide pass had already been pounced on by Swanson, and no defender in the world is closing that gap in time. Lavelle also makes a smart drive central, which forced the center backs to pinch together, creating space for a simple pass to Swanson in the box.

By the time Lavelle releases the pass, the left sided center back had turned her back to Swanson, who received the ball in stride and with time to pick and place her shot. Athleticism in an athletic sport will never be a pejorative, and any attempt to slow down the USWNT plays into the hands of the opposition.

Of course I must also shoutout Tierna Davidson’s brace as well. Set pieces used to be an important part of this team, but in both scoring and defending that’s gone away. From an attacking standpoint, with Sam Coffey, Catarina Macario and Mal Swanson’s delivery, that’s always been confusing.

Being able to create and take advantage of set piece opportunities helped Sweden through the World Cup and put center back Amanda Ilestedt close to the golden boot. While I focused on open play, Davidson’s goals were almost just as refreshing.

Of course, it’s just one game and against a national team with players who had just finished seasons and undergone extensive travel. There’s surely more to come and dissect, and more that will become obvious. Even in what we’ve already seen, there will be more difficulties in recreating the successes on different days and against different teams (maybe even in the second match, June 4). But these four goals pointed at a direction of the team, and to a path that felt refreshing, and familiar.