Emma Hayes: Meet the Chelsea boss who has her sights set on a job working in the men’s game
Emma Hayes is a happy woman. Her Chelsea side have made a sensational start to their 2017-18 Women’s Super League season, having already topped the makeshift Spring Series, and are now finally poised to conquer Europe. “This is a product of five years of work,” she tells FFT in the wake of her team’s victory over 10-time Swedish champions FC Rosengard, ensuring a spot in the Champions League last eight for the first time in the club’s history. “We have earned this place, it’s not an accident. We’ve worked hard for it and we looked very much in control. I remember going into the dressing room ahead of the first leg and watching the entire squad doing the Macarena. I thought: ‘This is so mental, our team are so relaxed’. “This is a dressing room that has got everything: the spirit isn’t manufactured, it really is organic. I’ve put together a great group of people and the performances are a reflection of that.” The 41-year-old’s come to expect this kind of display from her players. Not only had they sent Bayern Munich packing in the previous round of the Champions League, the Blues also hit a whopping 32 goals in eight matches in the process of winning the 2017 Spring Series – a short-form championship devised to fill the void left when the WSL switched from a summer season to a more traditional winter format.
“I knew what a dressing room I had and I knew it back in the spring,” explains Hayes. “I say this to all my staff: you’re not always blessed with getting the knack of a winning formula in every team, but when you do get it, you’ve got to run with it, you’ve got to maximise it. I keep saying it to the players as well. It doesn’t last forever, so you have to seize it while you have it.
“In the spring we’d turned a real corner mentally, and I don’t think we fear anyone now. I don’t think we fear Lyon [Champions League winners in each of the last two seasons] or Wolfsburg either.”
That’s a particularly big statement, given the Blues looked like statues against the German side a year ago and were ripped apart at Stamford Bridge, having also been knocked out of the 2015-16 competition by the same opposition. Since then, Hayes has worked hard to create a squad that has a realistic chance of competing and winning on the continental stage, bringing in Olympic gold medal-winning American Crystal Dunn, Switzerland’s Ramona Bachmann and the Norway captain, Maren Mjelde.
“There was a great group of players that took us to the Double in 2015 but we had to evolve again, especially in European competition,” admits Hayes. “It’s been a long journey since that night at home to Wolfsburg. We’ve been looking to recruit the right personalities as well as instilling another level of mental strength, which is what happens when you sign players who are winners.”
Yet Hayes is no stranger to European triumph. The Camden-born coach was part of Vic Akers’ backroom staff when his Arsenal team won their famous quadruple in 2006-07 – Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and what was then called the UEFA Women’s Cup. Her time with the Gunners was sandwiched between two spells working in the United States. The first included stints with the Long Island Lady Riders, where she picked up the National Coach of the Year award in 2002, and at Iona College. The second saw her coach at Chicago Red Stars, Washington Freedom and Western New York Flash, before returning to England in 2011 and agreeing to take on the Chelsea job the following year.
In 2015 Hayes led her side to a domestic league and cup Double, and her career achievements were rewarded with an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours – not bad for a girl who had grown up playing football on a north-west London housing estate.
She is quick to credit her team for their hard work. “Sometimes I’ll come off the pitch after a game and can’t remember who the scorers were,” she says, “because quite genuinely this is the most fluid and creative group of players I’ve ever worked with, and I know that no one cares who’s sticking the ball in the back of the net for us. “There’s a real sense of harmony and team spirit in the way that we’ve been performing this season – everyone seems to be putting somebody else in a better position. “For me, we have done everything progressively and nothing feels like an accident. The players know their roles, they know the expectations, they know the culture and they know the vision. They’re running the bus. Forget me – I’m collecting fares, I’m no longer driving.” Hayes does admit, though, that her players are carrying out her plans and putting on the kind of show she loves to see. “I’m a huge football fan and of playing a certain way,” she says. “I love creative players and I hate the old adage that English teams can’t play football – it drives me insane. I always attribute that to poor coaching, because it’s much easier in my opinion to develop defending. “Defending’s the easiest component of coaching. It’s got a very clear structure, rules and rigidity to it. Developing creativity? Doing that is a whole other task. To develop creativity when you’re coming up against teams that are compact and low, you’ve got to be really inventive, creative, brave – whatever you want to call it. “Players are very involved in their learning and know that I’ll present the pictures for them, but they’ll be evolving all of the decisions. I can leave every game saying I know the supporters are heading home happy. It’s an art to me, not a science.” Although 2017 has gone brilliantly on the pitch, Hayes’ management skills were certainly tested when Chelsea striker Eniola Aluko alleged that then-england boss Mark Sampson had made racially discriminatory remarks towards her and young team-mate, Drew Spence. Aluko later told the press she had not spoken to any of the Lionesses’ squad except those playing for the Blues.
“I’M NOT INTERESTED In THE ENGLAND JOB. I FIND A LOT OF INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL TEDIOUS AND I’D GET BORED – A BIGGER AMBITION IS GOING INTO THE MEN’S GAME”
“It’s been a challenging time both for Eni and Drew, two people that I know very well and two people who are not liars,” says Hayes. “It was so difficult for them to deal with the public outpouring with everything that went on. I think they handled themselves really, really well. It was challenging for the players that wear the England badge and Chelsea badge at different times, but what we didn’t do here was ignore the elephant in the room. We dealt with it and we dealt with it collectively, and because of that we’ve come through it.
“It’s important everybody understands that, while some people may have good experiences with something, you’ve got to be a little more empathetic to how it would feel if you were subjected to a homophobic or racist remark. I hope we can continue to educate the players about appreciating that, while something hasn’t happened to you, we have to accept that we must be more empathetic to others.”
Hayes feels that the growing profile of the women’s game, combined with the outcry over the Sampson situation, has marked a watershed moment for the sport – and hopes that, in future, people in positions of authority reconsider their methods and the ways in which they are treating others.
“We’ve tolerated an awful lot for a long time, whether that’s bullying behaviour or being made to feel like second-class citizens in our own sport,” she says. “This isn’t just about Eni Aluko. This is about saying: ‘You can’t talk to me like that.’ That we, as women, are important.
“Everyone in a position of power has to accept a bit of responsibility. We have a moral responsibility to be conscious of the diversity that’s in our game, and our words matter. You need to know that as much as you need to know your Xs and Os on the tactics board.”
Hayes herself had been linked with the England job, but she insists it holds no allure for her.
“I’m not interested in the England job and I was never interested in the England job,” she says. “I’m not ready at this point in my life to be bored and coach, in my opinion, once every couple of years. I find a lot of international football tedious. I just want to be challenged daily. Yes, some of the work might be different but I’d get bored, if I’m brutally honest. I like recruitment too much.”
That doesn’t mean that Hayes isn’t ambitious, however. Looking to the future, she has plans. Big plans. “I would be interested in going into the men’s game at some point in my career,” she reveals.
“For me, a bigger ambition is to become the first female to manage in the men’s game. That’s a bigger ambition for me than winning the World Cup with England.” And there’s something she wants to accomplish more immediately. “Having been in that dressing room at Arsenal with Vic, I was part of the group that said no one would do the quadruple ever again,” she says. “Well, that’s been on my mind for 10 years now, because I want to be the coach who does it again.”