U.S. women’s national team fans got an unexpected piece of welcome news on Saturday, as multiple reports linked longtime Chelsea manager Emma Hayes to the open head coaching position for the former No. 1 team in the world. Hayes has been confirmed to leave Chelsea at the end of this WSL season, at which point she is expected to lead the USWNT to the 2024 Olympics.

Hayes was not on the shortlist reported by The Athletic last month, which named Australia’s Tony Gustavsson, OL Reign’s Laura Harvey and Juventus’ Joe Montemurro as the three preferred candidates for the job. But to many, she’s seen as the best hire U.S. Soccer could have persuaded to make the jump.

Hayes has won six WSL titles with Chelsea, including the past four years running. She’s also won five FA Cups, two League Cups and one Community Shield. She became the face of the sport’s evolution in England, both as a trailblazer in convincing one of the country’s top clubs to invest in the women’s game and as a manager who maintained an advantage as others followed suit.

Hayes brings a critical eye to a U.S. team at a crossroads. The USWNT’s development and tactical style have struggled to keep the world at arms length, as the global game catches up in women’s national team investment. Here’s what the USWNT can expect from their anticipated hire.

Right coach at the right time

Hayes has a familiarity with the American development pipeline and league systems, without being too close to the program to make bold decisions. One concern about an NWSL hire like Harvey was that coaches with preconceived notions of the USWNT hierarchy might be reluctant to make the necessary changes to push the team into a new era of women’s soccer.

In her time at Chelsea, Hayes seemed to have an eye for emerging superstars, famously recruiting Sam Kerr from the NWSL in 2019, and has always looked for American talent like Crystal Dunn in 2017 and most recently bringing in Americans Catarina Macario and Mia Fishel. She demonstrated an understanding of North American soccer, signing top Canadians Ashley Lawrence and Jessie Fleming as well.

Hayes also has experience coaching in the U.S., managing the Chicago Red Stars in WPS from 2008-10 and serving as technical director for the Western New York Flash and a consultant for the Washington Freedom. She returned to England without an incredible resume — she registered a 23% win percentage in her time in Chicago — but her growth as a manager since then sets her up to return with valuable experience.

If USWNT fans grew impatient with Vlatko Andonovski’s rigidity in his four-year stint with the team, they have reason to be excited for what Hayes brings. Her Chelsea teams are a testament to her willingness to try new things, both in personnel and the team’s style of play. She’s tried the Chelsea defense in both a four- and a three-back based on available players, and she can push the team into a high-flying attack against a bunker but isn’t unwilling to prioritize full-team defense against top competition.

That openness in philosophy should serve Hayes well at the international level and offset some of the perennial concerns of a club manager making the leap to a national team. The nature of the two jobs is very different. Hayes will have to get used to implementing her ideas in just a few weeks out of the year, compared to many months at the club level. She will also have to adjust to the scouting realities of a national team manager, no longer able to compile talent from other countries the way she’s done so well with Chelsea.

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Hayes recruited USWNT forward Mia Fishel from Liga MX Femenil this season. (John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)

History has a way of repeating itself

Hayes’ club record also provides a certain amount of intrigue, especially in the context of her predecessor. Coaching the USWNT requires many jobs within one — managing superstars and bubble players alike, having an eye on the development pipeline to maintain the health of the program and winning. U.S. Soccer and USWNT fans have both felt the conflict between the team trying to reinvent itself while also refusing to drop friendlies against top opponents. Hayes will be a perfect fit for the latter assignment; her Chelsea teams dropped very few games in which they were favored.

But Andonovski came into the role with similar club accolades, and in the end he was not the right manager to see the USWNT through knockout matches against the world’s best. And while Hayes has dominated all facets of English football for many years, there is one trophy that continues to elude her. Her Chelsea teams have never won the Champions League, losing handily to Barcelona in the one final they reached under Hayes. She’s not immune to being out-coached in the heat of a must-win game, and her Chelsea teams don’t always start hot out of the gate.

There is also the issue of U.S. Soccer’s reported plan for the build-up to the Olympics, which would require either interim manager Twila Kilgore or a member of Hayes’ new staff to guide the team until Hayes has finished her final Chelsea campaign in May 2024. It appears the U.S. would rather get their preferred candidate for the long-term future than make a hasty hire with the Olympics in mind, but pressure will be on Hayes to communicate her scouting and tactical ideas through the grapevine. Everyone will expect the USWNT to contend for the Olympic gold after a disappointing World Cup campaign.

Unclear communication and a sacrificed major tournament could complicate Hayes’ place in the locker room before she even gets a chance to run the team full-time, especially with a player pool as competitive as the USWNT’s. But her track record of managing those moments is as strong as they come, and if anyone can handle a tricky transition, it would be a coach of her caliber. The U.S. has found their coach, and now it’s time for her to build a team that can contend for glory once again.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

Fans who wanted to purchase Arsenal’s designer kits will soon be out of luck.

The bespoke away kit, created by adidas Creative Director Stella McCartney, was nearly sold out on Arsenal’s team shop as of early Saturday morning.

The team will debit the kit for an away Women’s Super League game at Manchester United on Oct. 6, marking the first time Arsenal’s women’s team will wear a different kit than the men.

“It’s so special to be marking this with a collection as playful and bold as this one,” Arsenal star Alessia Russo said in a press release. “For me, football has always been about having fun and getting creative – it’s why I got into it as a young girl and it’s what inspires me today.

“I love that this collection represents that, and I can’t wait to wear the shirt with pride on match day.”

As of early Saturday morning, there was only one size of the youth kit available, and the regular fit had only large and smaller sizes left. The authentic women’s and men’s fits were both sold out.

The eight-piece collection includes a shirt made with AEROREADY technology, which combines sweat-wicking and absorbent materials to ensure a dry feel.

“I love that the away jersey taps into the exciting intersection of fashion and football through its elevated geometric print and captivating hues – with technical performance materials at the core,” McCartney said. “It’s important that both players and fans alike can playfully express themselves as they move on and off the pitch, and we hope this bold, new collection can play a part in that.”

The men’s Arsenal team will wear the jerseys as a pre-match warmup before its game against Manchester City on Oct. 8.

English clubs are pushing back at national teams’ World Cup preparations, opting to release their players just 10 days before the tournament so they have more time to rest after their club seasons, the Telegraph reports.

The move follows FIFA regulations, which state that clubs are obliged to release their players for national team duty on July 10. But the proposed date comes weeks after many national team camps are scheduled to take place.

The European Club Association has told women’s national teams that players will not be available until the international window officially starts due to concerns about player welfare.

“The issue of early call-ups is a hangover from the game in its amateur form and is detrimental to the future success and growth of women’s football,” ECA head of women’s football Claire Bloomfield told the Telegraph. “They also generate a great deal of unnecessary tension in the relationship between clubs and their players.”

The ECA has also written to FIFA to ask for their support. As the list of injured women’s soccer stars continues to grow, the ECA believes that players need more rest and an actual offseason.

Many national teams had planned to start their training camps in mid-June, with the intention of traveling to Australia and New Zealand in early July to give their players time to get acclimated before games begin. England is currently scheduled to fly to Australia on July 5.

FIFA will compensate clubs for releasing their players after July 10.

“This is not a matter of financial compensation or the absence of adequate protection and insurance, but a serious concern for player welfare,” Bloomfield told the Telegraph. “We were given a very clear mandate by our member clubs, which includes engaging in constructive and direct communication with our key stakeholders and partners, and this will be our focus in the coming days.”

A number of high-profile stars have suffered injuries in recent months, including England captain Leah Williamson, England forward Beth Mead and Dutch star Vivianne Miedema are all out with ACL injuries. England defender Lucy Bronze also underwent a knee surgery this week that isn’t expected to keep her out of the World Cup.

The WSL is set to conclude on May 27, and the Women’s Champions League final will be played on June 3. England, Sweden, Denmark and Norway are said to be among the national teams requesting clubs to release players for a mid-June training camp start.

There is also concern over the World Cup’s Aug. 20 end date, which gives players very little time to rest before Champions League first-round qualifiers begin as early as Sept. 6. The 2023-24 WSL season then begins the final weekend of September, with another international break scheduled for mid-September.

The NWSL and the USWNT underwent a similar dispute in February ahead of the NWSL season, which has since been resolved.

Khadija “Bunny” Shaw is heading to Manchester City.

The Club announced on Thursday that the Jamaica striker will start with Manchester City following the conclusion of her contract with Division 1 Feminine’s Bordeaux. Shaw ended her stint in France as Division 1 Feminine’s top scorer for the 2020-2021 season with 22 goals.

Shaw’s deal with Manchester City will run through the 2024 WSL season.

“It feels amazing to be a Manchester City player. I chose this club because I want to be a part of the environment, the culture and to play for this amazing team,” Shaw said in a statement through the club.

Fran Kirby can add WSL Player of the Season to her mounting list of accomplishments.

Chelsea swept post-season honors with Emma Hayes also winning Manager of the Season. The Blues’ ended the 2020-2021 season as back-to-back WSL champions, beating out Manchester City by two points in the title race.

Kirby recorded 16 goals and 11 assists over 18 appearances, helping advance Chelsea to the top of the table. Her partnership with Sam Kerr has been something to behold, with the pair amassing 37 goals and 18 assists in their first full season together.

2021 was Kirby’s first time back on the pitch after being out for nearly a year with pericarditis. The virus kept Kirby bed-ridden for the majority of the 2019-2020 season. Now back and healthy, Kirby looks to be in top form.

With the club season behind her, Kirby will now prepare for the summer Olympics, where she is expected to represent Great Britain on the team’s 18-person roster.

Everton have a very talented squad, a well versed manager, and all the tools they need to break into the FAWSL elite. What they lack is a mental edge, and it showed in their fifth-place finish this year. 

The team started the season strong, with four wins out of the gate. Their fifth match was against Brighton and ended in a 2-2 draw. It was a match that they should have won based on their performance, and their chances.

Still, they were unbeaten going into their next match: away at Chelsea. 

At that point in the season, Chelsea was going into the match with the exact same results as Everton, four wins, and one draw. Yet, as soon as the first whistle was blown, the hosts were all over Everton on the pitch, and the dominant and defiant Everton that had played the first five matches of the season were nowhere to be found.

Chelsea scored within the first 20 minutes, and the score remained 1-0 at halftime. Everton had a few chances to equalize but failed to capitalize. The story of the second half was similar; Chelsea were not necessarily defending well, but their opponents had little composure in front of the goal. Eventually, three late goals gave Chelsea the 4-0 win. 

“I thought our performance was really good,” said Everton manager Willie Kirk. “Nobody can convince me that’s a 4-0 performance. It’s a bump in the road but a very sore one.” 

Things after that Chelsea match did not improve, with only one win in their next seven matches. For such a strong start at the beginning of the season, Everton ended up finishing the 22 match season with only nine wins. After their seventh loss of the season, a 2-1 defeat against Arsenal, Blues midfielder, Izzy Christiansen, spoke about the team’s mental state throughout the season. The defeat came after a 94th minute penalty from Arsenal’s Kim Little.

“We just have to overcome that fear that we have against these bigger teams sometimes, it is that boundary between being good and being great,” said Christiansen, who ended the season as Everton’s top scorer with seven goals in all competitions. “We showed a lot of grit and bite today that we haven’t necessarily shown in previous games against top-three teams. I am proud of the team for that and we were really unlucky to concede the penalty, but it is a learning curve for us.”

The problem was that there were no clear signs of an easy solution. The tactics by Kirk seemed appropriate, and the players were playing well as a team for the most part. Instead, the loss of points almost always came down to lapses’ in concentration for Everton: unnecessarily penalties conceded, poor defensive decision making, and an inability to score in crucial moments despite creating big chances for themselves. 

After the Arsenal match, Everton had a chance to rectify their mistake by playing another top team in Manchester United for their last game of the season. 

United, despite being in poor forms themselves, won the match 2-0, with Ella Toone scoring an early volley in the 8th minute, and Kirsty Hanson scoring a late one in the 89th minute. 

Jill Scott, who is one of Everton’s most experienced players and is on loan from Manchester City discussed her team’s frame of mind during the match. 

“We’re disappointed with the result. We probably didn’t start the game at our best. If you go 1-0 down, you give yourself a bit of a mountain to climb,” she said. “We just got a little bit desperate at the end, the game became too open and we were always chasing that win.”

Kirk also talked about making a push for a Champions League spot next season after the match. 

“There’s an evident gap between us and the top four. We need to make changes. We need to change our working practices. We need to continue to work at the culture. There’s got to be a little bit more of a killer instinct,” he said. “As a team, I feel we’re on a cliff edge and it’s about the ones who are brave enough to jump and have a bit of faith. When you jump, there’s going to be a nice landing. Those who don’t jump, they can’t be here because we need to find a way of jumping into something positive. It’s about taking those ones with us who are brave enough and making sure we are competing for Champions League spots next season.”

There is no overnight solution for combating the problem that Everton have. But if the club wants to break into the FAWSL elite, the players and the coaching staff need to work together to instill a tougher mentality against the teams above them in the table. You can’t join the elite until you believe you belong there, and Everton has reasons to believe they do.

Chelsea forward Fran Kirby has been named the Football Writers’ Association Women’s Footballer of the Year for the second time in her career, making her the first person to win the award twice.

Kirby won the inaugural award back in 2018.

Since then, the forward has had quite the journey. In November 2019, Kirby was diagnosed with pericarditis, a condition that causes swelling around the heart and threatened her soccer career. After six months of recovery, she returned to action at the start of the 2020-21 season.

“For me at the beginning of the year, I had no expectations of how my year was going to go,” Kirby said in an interview with Sky Sports News. “I was so motivated to come back and to be able to come back in a good way for my teammates. I didn’t want to come back in and be someone that the team has to carry.

“It was difficult to have to start from scratch. I had no fitness level, I hadn’t kicked a football in six months, so I think for me that was the hardest part.”

As the season got underway, Kirby was the one carrying her team offensively. She scored 16 goals and contributed 11 assists en route to Chelsea’s second consecutive Women’s Super League title. She also scored six goals to lead Chelsea to their first-ever UEFA Women’s Champions League Final, including this goal against Bayern Munich in the semifinals.

Kirby and teammate Sam Kerr have been unstoppable all season, linking up for 52 goals scored, including the following against Reading.

Kirby was chosen unanimously for the award by a panel of 30 women’s football experts.

“To have overcome a serious health condition and return in such sparkling form is admirable and inspiring,” Jen O’Neill, chair of the FWA’s women’s sub-committee, said in a statement. “Several players, including many of her Chelsea teammates, have been outstanding in a superb WSL season but there are fewer more joyful sights in football than a smiling, fit and firing Kirby.”

The final episode of Season 1 of The Soccer Show dropped Wednesday, with Dave and Haley recapping the ending of the FA WASL season and welcoming Manchester City’s Janine Beckie as their final guest. 

The Canadian Superstar and Man City utility knife stopped by to discuss the rivalry between City and Chelsea, finding her form late in the season, and what it was like playing alongside USWNT star Sam Mewis. 

“It’s definitely a fiery rivalry,” Beckie said on the show while discussing the title race between City and Chelsea. “You make it difficult when you leave the fate of the league up to another team, so we didn’t take care of business when we should have and had some pretty poor performances that resulted in draws early on in the season that came back to bite us a little bit. At the end of the day, we didn’t do enough to win and they did, so gotta tip our hat to them.”

She adds that it was odd playing opposite of Canadian National Team teammate Jesse Flemming, who is a midfielder for Chelsea, especially when they were warming up and would run into each other.

In regards to finding her form, Beckie admits that it was a bit difficult switching positions all season. 

“It’s difficult because versatility can be a double-edged sword, you don’t really get the chance to master one position,” she said, while maintaining that she tries her best to see it as a positive. “I do think it brings a lot of value to the team and I’m happy to do a job for the team when I need to.”

“Unfortunately my form came a little late to make the impact I would have liked to have had.”

But finding her form also came alongside linking up with USWNT star Sam Mewis, which Beckie says is a dream come true. 

“Of a lot of the players in the world, Sam is definitely one I would have had on my list as dream teammates, so to be able to play with her has been really great,” Beckie said. “She is the ultimate competitor, is so competitive. I love it. She’s a winner. She just wants to win and She’ll do whatever it takes to win and you can’t really complain about that as a teammate.”

“She’s come in and she’s had an impact massively on the club. Scored some really big goals for us and had some really big performances.” 

Catch the full show below, and be sure to stick around for a special announcement, as Haley announces which FAWSL team she’ll be supporting in the future.

Liverpool Women have announced Matt Beard as the club’s next manager.

Most recently, Beard served as Bristol City interim manager while Tanya Oxtoby was on maternity leave.

Beard is familiar with Liverpool, having led the club to back-to-back WSL titles in 2013 and 2014.

“I’m delighted to be back at Liverpool Women,” Beard said in a statement Thursday. “When the opportunity arose, it was something I wanted to do. I’ve always followed the club since I left — it’s close to my heart.”

Liverpool spent the past season trying to claw their way back into the Women’s Super League after being relegated to the Championship in 2020. After a loss to eventual winner Leicester City in January, Liverpool ended the season in third place and missed out on the WSL bounce-back opportunity.

Beard will be tasked with leading the club back to the Super League when he takes over for the 2022 season.

Casey Stoney is leaving Manchester United.

On Wednesday, the club announced that Stoney would be stepping down from her role as head coach at the end of the season. United finished fourth in this year’s WSL standings, narrowly pushing the team out of Champions League eligibility.

In a statement to the media, Stoney said coaching the club was an honor and that her decision to leave wasn’t easy. Stoney has been with United since 2018.

According to reporting done by The Athletic’s Meg Linehan, Stoney could be on the move — to southern California.

Sources indicate Stoney has been linked to the NWSL’s potential San Diego expansion team. The former Manchester United coach is said to be a favorite for Jill Ellis, who is attached to San Diego as the club’s sporting director.

As for Manchester United, John Murtough, the club’s Football Director, said the organization is still committed to the women’s team and building upon Stoney’s legacy.