USWNT’s Emma Hayes coaches with a long-term vision, but the future of USA soccer may be now

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. – For U.S. women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes, much of the last year has been an exercise in planning for the long-term. She speaks frequently about how learning never stops for players and how teaching is her favorite part of the job, perfectly positioned to have as much information as possible by the time she has to lock in personnel and tactical choices for the 2027 Women’s World Cup. It may be early in Hayes’ reinvention of the USWNT, but in Sunday’s 3-1 win over Portugal, she may have been witness to the biggest takeaway yet – the future just might be now.

Whether or not it was in direct response to the team’s 2-1 loss to Portugal just three days earlier, Hayes used her re-do to make eight changes to Thursday’s lineup, her youth-skewing roster on full display. Ten of the starters combined for 100 caps while the 11th, center back Emily Sonnett, had 111 on her own before Sunday, allowing Hayes a chance to gauge a young group’s evolution in comparison to losses to Japan and Brazil in the spring. That was especially true in midfield – out went the trio Sam Coffey, Lindsey Heaps and Rose Lavelle, the starters from the 2024 Olympic gold medal-winning team with an average age of 29, and in came Claire Hutton, Lily Yohannes and Olivia Moultrie, a trio with an average age of 19.

The results were instant, with Moultrie scoring a brace in the opening 10 minutes of the game. Her second goal was especially emblematic of the difference between three days and an almost brand-new starting lineup. Yohannes noticed Jaedyn Shaw, another new starter, making a run towards goal and pinged a perfectly-placed long ball in her direction. Shaw needed a second touch on the ball after her first got away from her, but she quickly came through with a backheel pass to Moultrie, who found some space and slotted the ball cleanly into the bottom left corner of the net, making the most of their opportunities on the field.

“They performed like I expect them to perform. I rate them highly. I think they are the present and the future for the program,” Hayes said after the game. “That was a great step – positionally, tactically, technically, physically. I thought that was a higher level than six months ago.”

Even as Portugal’s fifth-minute goal showcased some more room for improvement in the USWNT’s defense and the attack did not generate as many chances on Sunday as it did on Thursday, the success of the U.S.’ new-look midfield was the greatest takeaway as Hayes’ learning period continues. In addition to Moultrie’s brace, there was a fluidity that was apparent throughout the 90 minutes, even if Portugal’s intensity dropped from Thursday’s game to Sunday’s. Yohannes was perhaps the biggest plus of all in the center of the park as the 18-year-old expertly noticed the teammates in front of her making runs, perfectly picking out passes to them to unlock meaningful goalscoring opportunities.

“I think we had much more control in this game,” Yohannes said, a difference from the “chaotic” feeling of entering Thursday’s game shortly before Portugal’s game-winner. “I think reviewing and talking about how we wanted to connect more, to be better in our structure and get the spacing and different things like that, that allowed us to connect better.”

Yohannes combined expertly with Moultrie, who took advantage of the opportunity in front of her as the battle for starting roles in midfield heats up. While the U.S. midfield failed to cover themselves in glory on Thursday, Lavelle was arguably one of the few bright spots with the team’s only goal and a creative spark that led to some meaningful goalscoring chances. Moultrie announced herself with her performance on Sunday, her brace allowing the team to “just come back with, I guess, a vengeance,” and her chemistry with Yohannes in particular was a perfect response to the disjointed outing from Thursday.

“I love playing with Lily,” Moultrie said. “I think we think very similar on the field and just kind of being able to find each other in the pocket, play together, one-twos, I think that’s what we want and I think just in general, our whole team, we really looked for that.”

The USWNT’s youthful midfield feels like an early winner of Hayes’ experimentation process and a much-needed one. The last year of tinkering was as hard a reset as the team has experienced in recent years but Thursday’s outing offered a stark reminder that the USWNT’s midfield was disjointed before Hayes showed up and was one of the team’s areas of weakness during the gold medal run in Paris. A lack of rhythm in the center of the park generally drummed up a stilted attack, leading the U.S. to score just three goals in three knockout games along the way. With the Olympics trio, the USWNT did generate 16 shots on Thursday and 1.63 expected goals – a tally better than Sunday’s 10 shots and one expected goal – but Hayes felt the team looked more connected in their second go around against Portgual than their first.

“I thought positionally, attacking-wise, we were much, much better in all phases of the field,” the head coach said. “I think it’s a good lesson. The goal we conceded was an exact moment of not jumping out in the wrong moment, didn’t quite get a detail right as we keep telling the players, at the highest level, those details matter so I have a coaching opportunity in and around the goal. It’s all of it leading up to that but I think we responded well from that, kept playing, kept showing our principles, showed the control element that I felt was lacking in the last game and it was overall a much better performance.”

Just under two years before a World Cup, it would be hard to describe any player as a lock, nor is there any reason for Hayes to rush to her decisions. The head coach is still very quick to preach patience with her young players, well aware of the fact that growth is rarely linear. She issues praise and feedback in the same breath for player after player, a level-headed approach for a coach stewarding a group of players as they earn their first experiences on the international stage. Take, for example, her assessment of Yohannes, arguably the USWNT’s brightest rising talent.

“She, like Claire Hutton, plays beyond her years,” Hayes said. “She has no fear to get on the ball with pressure, solve pressure, she can switch balls out, thread balls in behind. Still think there’s a lot of work for her to do defensively for the team. At the highest level, you have to be really, really good. She still has work to do in that area, as do all of them. … I’m very, very happy she chose USA to play with because she’s just going to be an important part of our team.”

Hayes takes her responsibility as the coach of a young player pool incredibly seriously, perhaps the lone consistency in a tenure that has required different things out of her at different times. Even as she rushed to prepare the team for the Olympics, forced to live in the short-term despite being hired to oversee the team’s long-term vision, the head coach complained of an experience gap between the oldest and youngest players in the pool and argued her predecessors in the job were overly reliant on the veterans. She is taking the cautious and careful approach with a promising young group of players, no matter how impressive they are in the present.

“I still believe that it’s going to be in Jordyn Bugg’s, even in Claire Hutton’s best interests that they’re still playing in youth tournaments,” Hayes said, using those two teenagers as an example. “This is one of the things that top teams in the world do – if you’re Spanish, you’re German, you’re English, you are playing in the U-17 World Cup, the U-20 World Cup and this for me, is of prime importance, that our players are playing in youth national team tournaments. If we are to stand any chance of competing because I think what everybody needs to understand is that in the rest of the world, over a four [year] cycle, the number of games players are playing is equal is one season more than players in the U.S. and so I have to close the gap.”

There have been many signs of progress for Hayes’ in-development version of the USWNT, even if the work is far from over. The outing from the midfielders who started on Sunday, though, marks the most tangible sign of that progress and while the fact that they are the unfinished product encourages patience, there is also inherently a sense of optimism that the trio – and a host of their teammates – might only get better from here.