After several months of treading water, the U.S. women's national team is finally ready to start pushing in the right direction again. A new coach is on the way in, and she's a good one. After several months of searching, interviewing and discussing, the USWNT brought in one of the world's elite.
On Tuesday, Emma Hayes was officially announced as the USWNT's next head coach following confirmation that she will be leaving Chelsea at the end of the Women's Super League season arrived 10 days earlier. In Hayes, U.S. Soccer has gone out and flexed its muscles, luring in one of the world's most respected and successful leaders to help usher in a new era.
Hayes will know what she's walking into: a situation with unlimited potential, but plenty of pitfalls to navigate along the way. This job isn't easy by any means; there's just so much pressure and so many egos to navigate. Plenty of her predecessors have struggled to adapt, although Hayes does have the advantage of entering a locker room that has been humbled by several years of let-downs.
Because of that, the team that Hayes is inheriting is one that requires some fine-tuning. She isn't taking over a champion; she's taking over a squad that will need to re-learn what it takes to get to the top of the mountain.
But what are the big problems Hayes will have to address, and how might she go about rebuilding one of the world's elite? GOAL looks at some of the keys to Hayes' reign...