If you had any doubts about Emma Hayes, go ahead and admit right now that you were wrong. If you were worried about the wait, the fit or the style, then you haven't been paying attention.
We're just 180 minutes into these Olympic games, but it's already abundantly clear that Hayes has put this USWNT back on the precipice of the world's elite.
What a difference a coach can make, huh?
The Hayes Era is still very, very new, but it already feels entirely different from those sad final months of Vlatko Andonovski's tenure. The confidence and swagger have returned. So too have the goals. And perhaps those go hand-in-hand. Hayes' tactics have the USWNT running over and through opponents, and right now, they look as if they will be tough to stop.
Germany are the latest team to be pinned down to the tracks, unable to get out of the way of the U.S. freight train. Zambia felt it, too, in their 3-1 defeat, but Germany got it even worse as the USWNT ran away with a 4-1 win in Sunday's group stage.
With the win, the U.S. joined Spain as the first teams to secure a spot in the quarterfinals. The USWNT has now made it out of the group in all eight trips to the Olympics and has medaled in six of its seven previous Olympic appearances.
Much of the credit should go to the players, of course. Sophia Smith, coming off an opening-match injury, balled out this time around. Mal Swanson got another goal, too. And what else is there to say about Trinity Rodman, who looks like a new player this summer compared to last?
But give Hayes her flowers, too. It's her tactics and her belief that has the U.S. in this position. Her tweaks have made all the difference. Her willingness to unleash this attack has led to goals in bunches. In just a few games, she's found the balance that the U.S. so often lacked at the 2023 World Cup.
Hayes was complimentary of the attack, saying "I think we were absolutely devastating when we needed to be." But she added that this team still a work in progress, noting that "there's still things that irritate me about us, but that's for me to fix. ... There's things I'm learning about the team tonight from a character perspective that I want to see, from a resilience perspective I wanted to see. When you play a top-level opponent, you get to see all sides and I saw all sides of us tonight, which was pleasing."
Don't underestimate Hayes and, given what we've seen, don't underestimate the USWNT. This team still has a lot of work to do but, with Hayes at the helm, the hope has returned.
GOAL takes a look at the winners and losers of the USWNT's win over Germany.