The female Jose Mourinho? Introducing Chelsea Ladies manager Emma Hayes
This feature appears in the current edition of Sport magazine. , and
Emma Hayes is a manager who does not pull her punches. “I like that,” shouts the Chelsea manager as she watches one of her players executing a drill that involves receiving a pass, before turning and moving the ball deftly between two mannequins. “Shit shot, though,” she adds as the same player sends the ball flying well wide of the goal.
With Chelsea’s 2015 FA WSL season starting against Notts County on Sunday, Hayes is applying the final touches to a squad that came painfully close to winning their first WSL title last year. The Blues went into the final day of the season two points clear of Birmingham in second, and three points ahead of Liverpool in third. But, 90 minutes later, it was the Reds who lifted the trophy after beating Bristol Academy 3-0. Chelsea, meanwhile, lost 2-1 to Manchester City.
“To come so close, to have it in your hands and then lose, is hard,” says Hayes with a sharp intake of breath. “But, for whatever reasons, we weren’t ready. It wasn’t meant to be.”
Hayes reels off the things that went against Chelsea that day, including “a poor refereeing decision in the Liverpool versus Bristol game” and Chelsea goalkeeper Marie Hourihan breaking her collarbone just minutes into their match. The Blues had no back-up keeper on the bench.
“I don’t take anything away from anyone else,” Hayes continues. “But I think most people will look at last year and say: ‘Chelsea lost that.’ That’s life. We have to learn from it and get tougher. We’ve made improvements to the squad to make sure we have a bit more resilience to push one step further this year.”
Taking ownership
In the WSL’s first three seasons, Chelsea finished sixth twice - in 2011 and 2012 - and seventh in 2013. Hayes joined the club in 2012. Given that record, was she surprised to come so close last season? “I’m surprised we didn’t win it,” she says. Okay, so did she expect to get to that point so quickly?
“Yes,” she nods. “The first year [2013] was really just about trying to understand the landscape and everything that went with it. Last year was the first year with a squad of players that I had put together, and now I think it’s fair to say this is very much my team.”
Hayes is only 38, but the former Arsenal Ladies player has been coaching for more than a decade. She started in her mid-20s, after an ankle injury ended her playing career.
“I broke my ankle when I was 17 and effectively lost my cartilage,” she explains. “As much as I wanted to keep playing, it was too painful. I couldn’t absorb shock. I can’t even play casually now. But I’m doing what I should be doing.”
Hayes took her UEFA B coaching licence in the UK, but her options here were limited. “There were no jobs,” she says. “So I took £1,000 and a backpack and moved to America.” That was 2001, shortly after the world’s first professional football league for women had launched amid a rush of excitement fuelled by the USA’s victory at the 1999 Women's World Cup.
“That was my big motivator,” says Hayes of the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA). “My boss at the time took me to the WUSA final and I said: ‘This is what I’m going to do one day; I’m going to manage one of these teams.’ It triggered everything for me.”
Hayes started out at semi-professional club Long Island Lady Riders and spent five years in the States before returning to Arsenal in 2006. Working as assistant coach to Arsenal boss Vic Akers, Hayes learnt valuable lessons from her time in north London.
“Vic set professional standards, even in quite an amateur setting,” she says. Hayes returned to Arsenal with the aim of helping them win the one trophy they were missing - the UEFA Women’s Cup (now the Women’s Champions League). The Gunners achieved that in her first season (2006-07), and Hayes stayed for just one more year before returning to the USA to take over as head coach of Chicago Red Stars.
“I needed a challenge,” she explains. “I was bored here. Arsenal were smashing everyone... I didn’t want a cushty job. I wanted to get better as a coach and I made the right decision. Chicago was the best thing I ever did, because without that experience I wouldn’t be successful here.”
The ‘best thing’ Hayes ever did also resulted in what she now admits was her toughest time as a coach, when she was fired by Chicago in 2010. “I had eight owners I had to regularly answer to,” she explains. “But all it did was confuse me, and I lost my way. On reflection, it was the biggest learning curve of my whole career.
“I looked at myself: I didn’t put together the right team. It’s not all about talented players - it’s about having the right characters. When I put a team together again, I made sure I got the blend right. I can’t call that experience a failure though. How can I talk about something that’s had a profound impact on my life as a failure? All it did was teach me to communicate better when you’re managing the expectations of very wealthy people.”
Blue beginnings
It was a lesson Hayes put into practice immediately at Chelsea: “I was clear from the start. I told them: ‘I don’t feel the talent is here. I’m going to play young players and I’m going to prioritise long-term development.’”
Chelsea endured a run of 10 defeats in 12 league games in 2013, but Hayes stood firm. “I just made it clear to my staff that I was strong enough to live with it and that I was happy to lose in the short term for the long term gain. People just look at the wins and losses that year, but we saw major successes. Our aim was to get things right off the pitch, and that was the first year we started to embed that culture. You can’t get it right on the pitch until you get it right off the pitch.”
Hayes created what she calls a ‘no-excuse culture’, whereby players are not given any opportunity to pass the buck if they don’t perform because they are part of a professional environment.
“Professional doesn’t mean money,” she adds. “It means habits, it means standards - the standard of winning, of training every
day and seeing yourself as a serious club. I remember coming to take over with five games left in the season, and I couldn’t even find a water bottle. It was an amateur team and an amateur set-up. There was no full-time staff and no full-time players. Now we have 20 players and several full-time staff.”
The team now travels to matches in similar style to the men. They have their own training pitch at Cobham and get meals provided at training every day - all integral factors in creating the ‘culture’ Hayes talks about. With Chelsea motivated by the painful memory of last season’s denouement, and with Hayes setting the standards, the players know there is no excuse not to deliver this year.