As Emma Hayes’ second year leading the USWNT kicks off, she finally gets to think big picture

For all the trophies Emma Hayes has won in her coaching career, the prize she gets to cherish right now is one she has rarely had.

It’s not an Olympic gold medal because coaches don’t get those, even in team sports.

In fact, it’s something less tangible: time.

Thirteen months since her hiring as the U.S. women’s soccer team’s manager, seven months since formally taking the helm, and five months since the Olympic triumph, Hayes finally now has time to look at the big picture.

Her team won’t play in another major tournament until the 2027 World Cup in 2½ years. There won’t even be another continental tournament until November 2026, when Concacaf holds its qualifying tournament for that World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. (And only the World Cup qualifying part of the event will matter to the U.S., since it’s in the Olympics automatically as host.)

That gives Hayes a luxury, and she knows it.

On Tuesday, Hayes will convene concurrent national team camps in suburban Los Angeles: a 26-player senior-level group and a 24-player “futures” group of players under age 23. That’s 50 players to judge, and the older set isn’t so old. Seven players earned their first senior national team call-ups and eight have played fewer than 10 national team games. Even some of the “veterans” are still young, like Naomi Girma (24), Jaedyn Shaw (20), and Alyssa Thompson (20).

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“I’m doing the job the other way around,” Hayes said this week. “I had 75 days [before] an Olympics, and now I’m getting the opportunity to build the program and develop the playing pool.”

As great as it was to win that Olympic gold, this is what she really signed up for — and what U.S. Soccer wants from her.

“I love developing, so this part is just as much fun as it is competing for a major tournament, in my eyes,” Hayes said. “Of course we have to experiment with players, and you can’t simply expect that a player with zero caps or less than five caps is going to go from being a dominant youth player to a dominant senior national team player at the highest level.”

She’s particularly interested in reestablishing the under-23 team’s significance. Top prospects will still go straight to the senior squad, but the under-23s can give an expanded platform to younger players.

“I want to be able to solidify the strong foundations that we’ve put in place but also make sure more players have a better understanding of that strong foundation,” Hayes said. “None of us know what the roster is going to look like in 2027. So I’m desperate to make sure that we’ve got more players that are in a better position, that can help us compete for the highest level.”

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A lot of incumbents won’t be there this month. The players at European clubs are in midseason, and Rose Lavelle, Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, and Mallory Swanson are resting to recover from injuries. (Lavelle recently had ankle surgery that Hayes called “just something that needs cleaning up, and it was the right time to do it.” The playmaker also will miss next month’s SheBelieves Cup.)

Hayes doesn’t need them, though, because she knows what they’ve got. She needs to see new players.

Nowhere is that more true than goalkeeper. There’s no clear successor to Alyssa Naeher in the wake of her retirement, and now is the time to look at candidates. The eight combined goalkeepers across the senior and futures squad include six with no senior caps, one from a club in the new USL Super League, and one who debuted last October. Casey Murphy is the lone veteran with 20 caps, with longtime backup Jane Campbell not called.

“I’ve seen Jane Campbell and Casey Murphy in great detail, and Mandy [McGlynn] Haught,” Hayes said. “But beyond that, I would like to see at least three others, to be in a position to say, ‘OK, where are we in that group of six?’ And I’m not including anyone for this camp, obviously, that’s playing in [England’s] WSL or beyond [in Europe].”

That was a reference to Manchester United’s Phallon Tullis-Joyce, a 28-year-old who has played well this season and earned her first senior U.S. call-up in November.

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“I would suspect by SheBelieves, I hope that I whittle that down to three,” Hayes said, “And then I think it will be about, ‘OK, I want to create opportunities, maybe not always for all three of them, but perhaps for two of them, to see how they fare against different opposition.’ And then try and give them the exposures over the next couple of years — but always keeping the door ajar for players that, let’s say, one of them is not quite ready, but will be ready for an under-23 program and may very well progress in the next 12 months.”

Historically, the U.S. program has moved quickly to establish starting goalkeepers for new World Cup cycles. But the program has had just five No. 1s across the nine World Cups and eight Olympics in women’s soccer history — Mary Harvey, Briana Scurry, Siri Mullinix, Hope Solo, and Naeher — and each was a clear choice to step in at her time. This time, things are different, and Hayes embraces that.

“I’m very optimistic,” she said. “We’ve got great goalkeepers in this country. We just have to recognize that there’s not a lot of caps between lots of them, and it will probably take the rest of this year to figure that out.”

And if the results don’t always look ideal, that’s why time is such a luxury.

“If you stick with the same starting 11 all the time, you know, people complain, ‘Ah, no one else is getting an opportunity,’” she said. “Yet if you chop and change and the performances look a little haphazard — we have to accept that change is going create some of that lack of consistency in what the end product looks like.”

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Goalkeepers (4): Angelina Anderson (Angel City FC), Claudia Dickey (Seattle Reign), Mandy McGlynn (Utah Royals), Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage)

Defenders (9): Tierna Davidson (Gotham FC), Crystal Dunn (Gotham FC), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave), Alyssa Malonson (Bay FC), Tara McKeown (Washington Spirit), Jenna Nighswonger (Gotham FC), Emily Sams (Orlando Pride), Emily Sonnett (Gotham FC), Ryan Williams (North Carolina Courage)

Midfielders (7): Hannah Bebar (Duke University*), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns), Savannah DeMelo (Racing Louisville), Hal Hershfelt (Washington Spirit), Nealy Martin (Gotham FC), Ashley Sanchez (North Carolina Courage), Jaedyn Shaw (San Diego Wave)

Forwards (6): Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit), Emma Sears (Racing Louisville), Ally Sentnor (Utah Royals), Ella Stevens (Gotham FC), Alyssa Thompson (Angel City), Morgan Weaver (Portland Thorns), Lynn Williams (Seattle Reign)

* - Bebar was called in after Lynn Williams withdrew due to hamstring soreness.

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Goalkeepers (4): Jordan Brown (University of Georgia), Mia Justus (Utah Royals), Neeku Purcell (Brooklyn FC), Teagan Wy (University of California)

Defenders (7): Jordyn Bugg (Seattle Reign), Heather Gilchrist (Florida State University), Savy King (Bay FC), Emily Mason (Seattle Reign*), Makenna Morris (Washington Spirit), Lilly Reale (Gotham FC), Gisele Thompson (Angel City)

Midfielders (6): Taylor Huff (Florida State), Claire Hutton (Kansas City Current), Riley Jackson (North Carolina Courage), Ainsley McCammon (Seattle Reign), Yuna McCormack (Florida State), Lexi Missimo (University of Texas)

Forwards (8): Michelle Cooper (Kansas City Current), Maddie Dahlien (Seattle Reign*), Jordynn Dudley (Florida State), Kate Faasse (University of North Carolina), Jameese Joseph (Chicago Stars), Avery Patterson (Houston Dash), Pietra Tordin (Portland Thorns*), Reilyn Turner (Portland Thorns)

* - Mason (a Rutgers product and Flemington, N.J., native), Dahlien (a North Carolina product), and Tordin (a Princeton product) signed their first professional contracts on Wednesday, soon after the initial announcement of the squad.

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