Kristie Mewis is excited to see what Emma Hayes will bring to the U.S. women’s national team.

While Hayes has yet to be announced as the team’s next coach, her impending departure from Chelsea has been confirmed. U.S. Soccer’s board of directors also has reportedly approved the hire.

In her 12 seasons with Chelsea, Hayes has led the club to six Women’s Super League titles and five FA Cup titles — including the last four WSL titles and the last three FA Cup titles. Mewis’ fiancée Sam Kerr has played under Hayes at Chelsea since 2020.

“She’s an outstanding coach and she has led Chelsea to so many championships and so many wins, and she’s a world respected coach,” Mewis said. “I’m super excited to see what she can bring to the team. She’s exactly what we need and I really just think that she’s going to take the team to the next level.”

USWNT forward Tobin Heath agreed, calling the hiring of Hayes a “no-brainer.”

“When I saw this announcement I thought to myself: ‘Great choice. No-brainer,’” she said. “Did I think she was available? No. So then I instantly kind of became a little confused as to the timing of when she would come. But when I think about Emma Hayes and the impact she’s had on the women’s game, and the success that she’s had at Chelsea, she’s a winner.”

England boss Sarina Wiegman, meanwhile, called the move “good for the women’s game.”

“For the bigger picture of the women’s game, I think it’s good,” she said. “What you hope is that with her visibility and with more coaches that are visible, that you get more female coaches that can do a great job. And whatever level you coach, we need more women in football. It’s a little bit sad for England and Chelsea, but it’s also good for the women’s game in general.”

And as far as who will lead Chelsea next, Hayes has said she’ll have a hand in picking the team’s next coach. It’s important to her that there is a succession plan in place to ensure that the team continues to dominate after her departure in May 2024.

“The time is right,” she said. “I will work with the club in the succession plan and do everything I can to make sure there is as good of a transition as possible so my successor can have the same level of success as I can.

“I think it will be so Chelsea of us to succession-plan my exit, so of course I will be involved in those conversations. It’s important that we really take the time to evaluate what the best fit will be.”

U.S. women’s national team midfielder Kriste Mewis and Australian striker Sam Kerr have confirmed their engagement after weeks of speculation. 

On Oct. 24, Mewis posted a collage on Instagram that features many pictures of herself and Kerr — and one that clearly showed an engagement ring on her finger.

Weeks passed without any confirmation of an engagement from the soccer stars, but a People Magazine exclusive broke the news Friday morning. The announcement came just ahead of Saturday’s NWSL Championship, in which Mewis will compete with Gotham FC.

The couple began dating in 2020 but kept their relationship quiet until 2021, when they were photographed together at the Tokyo Olympics. They rooted for each other throughout the 2023 World Cup as well, and Mewis told People that Kerr is her “biggest supporter.”

Mewis knows that she hasn’t been subtle when it comes to sharing her relationship online, but that is a purposeful decision. She hopes that her relationship with Kerr can be an inspiration to others.

“I love to share my relationship on social media,” Mewis told told soccer lifestyle magazine Gaffer. “So I think if we can change the way one or two people feel about themselves, they can look at us and see that we’re happy and we’re trying to be as successful as we can and we’re an out gay couple. I think that that’s so important.”

Aitana Bonmatí won the 2023 Ballon d’Or after leading Spain to its first-ever Women’s World Cup title.

The 25-year-old midfielder took home the Golden Ball award at this summer’s tournament in Australia and New Zealand. She also won the 2022-23 player of the year awards from UEFA and the Champions League, and she won the Liga F, Champions League and Supercopa titles with FC Barcelona.

Her Barcelona teammate, 19-year-old forward Salma Paralluelo, finished third in the Ballon d’Or voting. So it came as no surprise that the Spanish club, which had six of the 30 total nominees, won Women’s Team of the Year.

Australia striker Sam Kerr finished as runner-up to Bonmatí. Sophia Smith, the reigning NWSL MVP and one U.S. player among the nominees, ranked 25th overall.

Bonmati’s win makes three in a row for Spain. Alexia Putellas won the 2021 and 2022 awards but missed most of the 2022-23 season with an ACL tear.

USWNT forward Megan Rapinoe won in 2019, while her teammate Alex Morgan placed third. No other USWNT players have finished in the top three since the Ballon d’Or Féminin first was awarded in 2018.

A number of prominent women’s players were unable to attend Monday’s ceremony in Paris, which was held during the FIFA women’s international window. Georgia Stanway, one of four England players nominated for the Ballon d’Or, called out the scheduling.

“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t be there,” Stanway said. “We spoke about it as a group and said it would be nice in the future if the ceremony wasn’t on a matchday minus one day so we can all enjoy the experience. … If it was planned a little better, then it would be easier for a lot of female footballers to be there.”

U.S. women’s national team midfielder Kristie Mewis added fuel to the engagement rumors swirling around herself and Australia striker Sam Kerr.

In an Instagram post, Mewis featured a photo of herself holding a drink with her left hand, with a diamond ring prominently displayed on the third finger of her hand.

That photo led a collection of assorted snapshots, which Mewis captioned: “Some old and some new,” featuring Mewis in training, Gotham FC and USWNT teammates Kelley O’Hara and Lynn Williams, as well as Mewis and Kerr together. Kerr commented on the post with a heart emoji.

While neither Kerr nor Mewis have made any announcements about an engagement, eagle-eyed fans began to speculate after spotting the diamond ring on Mewis’ left hand in social media posts at the end of September.

The pair have been dating since 2020, but they did not go public with their relationship until they made headlines at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. They supported each other throughout the 2023 World Cup, with Mewis attending the Matildas’ matches after the USWNT’s Round of 16 elimination.

“Thank you babe for always being my everything every step of the way and I’m so proud of you and thankful for you,” Mewis wrote to Kerr in an Instagram caption after the USWNT’s World Cup exit.

Alex Morgan is the most marketable athlete in women’s sports in 2023.

The U.S. women’s national team star also stands as the third-most marketable athlete in the world behind Lionel Messi and LeBron James, according to SportsPro’s new ranking, which assesses athletes’ personal brand and reach.

Fellow USWNT forward Megan Rapinoe (No. 5) joins Morgan in the top five. Skier Mikaela Shiffrin (No. 6) and gymnast Simone Biles (No. 8) also rank in the top 10. From the world of tennis, newly-minted US Open champion Coco Gauff sits at No. 12 and Naomi Osaka at No. 14.

LSU star Angel Reese (No. 19) is the lone women’s basketball player on the list. She catapulted to stardom after leading the Tigers to their first national title in program history in 2023.

In total, 23 women are included among SportsPro’s top 50 most marketable athletes for 2023. In the World Cup year, Morgan and Rapinoe both jumped up the list, with the former up from eighth place and the latter up from 27th.

Serena Williams, who has since retired, dropped off the list, while Osaka and Australian soccer star Sam Kerr dropped out of the top 10.

This year’s list “underlines the growing commercial influence and value of women’s sport,” according to SportsPro. For the first time, qualitative research was included with quantitative marketability measurements to help determine the final rankings.

“This year’s 50 Most Marketable Athletes list follows the most comprehensive assessment of athlete marketability we’ve ever undertaken in the 14-year history of SportsPro’s annual ranking,” said Michael Long, editorial director at SportsPro.

When Mia Fishel scored the opening goal in her Chelsea debut, it felt like a Hollywood beginning. Fishel has been in the U.S. women’s national team conversation for months, she’s representative of a new wealth of club options for women’s soccer players in the U.S., and she is now proving herself on one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Fishel is a known goal-scorer. She can make connective passes and probing runs in behind the defense, and she can use her height to gain advantage in the air in front of her opponent’s goal. None of those assets are new now that she’s at Chelsea, but with a Women’s Super League contract and a first cap for the USWNT behind her, she appears to have unlocked another level in her game.

Even though she’s just 22 years old, Fishel’s ascension to international prominence has been a long time coming. She’s already played professionally in two leagues after a stellar college career at UCLA, and she has become a fan favorite among U.S. fans. But she’s also taken a path less traveled in the women’s soccer landscape, and it’s taken some time for decision-makers to catch up.

Drafted by her former UCLA coach, Amanda Cromwell, to the Orlando Pride in 2022, Fishel instead opted to join UANL Tigres in Liga MX Femenil. Liga MX Femenil began play in 2017 and has been rising in stature since its inception, but at the time was considered a developing league compared to the NWSL. Fishel dominated in Mexico, becoming the Liga MX Femenil’s top scorer with 47 goals in 64 games and the first foreign player to win the league’s Golden Boot. She won two league titles with Tigres and continued to develop as a young scorer, before making the leap to Chelsea.

“What I did was historic,” she told Goal.com in 2022. “You don’t see U.S. players coming to Mexico. This hasn’t been done yet. The rate at which the league has been growing was very appealing. They’ve only been here for five years or so, and the global media recognition, the passionate fans, playing in [large] stadiums, you just don’t get that in the U.S.”

Fishel’s jump to Liga MX Femenil was prescient, as other well-known internationals begin to follow suit. Spain star and World Cup champion Jenni Hermoso now plays for CF Pachuca, and former France national team player Kheira Hamraoui currently plays for Club America. Fishel’s decision to sign with Chelsea is perhaps an indication that the world of women’s soccer is bending toward the European game, but she’ll long be remembered as a trailblazer in choosing her own path.

Fishel landed at Chelsea this season as an expected backup to Australian superstar Sam Kerr, who missed the team’s WSL opening win over Tottenham on Sunday due to rest.

“For the team to be better, I needed to come in to help Sam Kerr when she doesn’t need to be in the game. That [means] a big role,” Fishel told the Evening Standard prior to the season’s start.

In some ways, it’s poetic that Fishel has joined a Chelsea team headlined by Kerr, whose journey to this point has parallels to that of her understudy.

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Sam Kerr has led Chelesa to four straight Women's Super League titles since joining the team in 2020. (Harriet Lander - Chelsea FC/Getty Images)

Nowadays, it feels like Kerr was always destined to be beloved in London, a trophy winner many times over and a top scorer in a league that grows in prowess with each passing year. But when Kerr officially joined Chelsea at the end of 2019, questions plagued the forward who started her career in Australia and North America, winning the NWSL Golden Boot more than once but failing to walk away from the NWSL with a Shield or a championship win.

Assumptions about athleticism trumping technical ability and how she would fit in with the biggest stars in Europe pervaded the conversations about Kerr. The answer, of course, was that she did just fine, finding an immediate foothold in Emma Hayes’ lineup and now considered one of the best players in the world.

For Fishel, that push for acceptance was delayed when former USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski declined to bring her into senior team camp in the run-up to the 2023 World Cup. While it’s impossible to know how a player would have performed within an unfamiliar environment, Andonovski’s decision was even more baffling because Fishel seems like exactly the type of player who would have thrived in his system.

Fishel has the ability to play target forward, and her first goal for Chelsea came courtesy of a towering header. But she can also slip back into the attacking midfield, and her ability to contribute to build-up play is the type of skill set Andonovski seemed to want out of Chelsea teammate Catarina Macario and U.S. veteran Alex Morgan. When it became clear that Macario would miss the World Cup due to injury, Andonovski’s stubbornness toward Fishel felt more like coaching dysfunction than objective evaluation of what she could possibly bring to the team.

After the USWNT parted ways with Andonovski following a disappointing World Cup result, Fishel was one of the first players brought into the fold for their September friendlies, earning her first cap in Megan Rapinoe’s final match. While the U.S. won’t have a new permanent manager until December, Fishel’s call-up could be perceived as a quick direction shift from Andonovski’s vision, rewarding the patience of a player who has done everything possible to earn an opportunity.

The next question for Fishel is how many minutes she’ll get for Chelsea consistently once Kerr returns to the starting lineup, but in just one appearance, she’s made herself difficult to drop. As long as she keeps performing at the highest levels, her time on the periphery of the USWNT should finally be over.

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

New photos are fueling rumors of an engagement between U.S. women’s national team midfielder Kristie Mewis and Australia striker Sam Kerr.

The pair have been dating since 2020, but they did not go public with their relationship until they made headlines at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. They supported each other throughout the 2023 World Cup, with Mewis attending the Matildas’ matches after the USWNT’s Round of 16 elimination.

“Thank you babe for always being my everything every step of the way and I’m so proud of you and thankful for you,” Mewis wrote on Instagram after the USWNT’s World Cup exit.

While neither Kerr nor Mewis have made any announcements about a possible marriage proposal, eagle-eyed fans have started to speculate after spotting a diamond ring on Mewis’ left hand in recent social media posts, including several from her NWSL club Gotham FC. Kerr has been visiting Mewis in the United States before her club season begins with Chelsea in England’s Women’s Super League.

On Saturday, Sam Kerr and Australia had one more chance to capture medals in the first World Cup in the Southern Hemisphere.

But the Malitdas fell in the third-place game to Sweden, 2-0. Even in defeat, Kerr, considered by many the greatest striker in the world, found a silver lining.

“Although it’s disappointing, we’ll think back to this in a couple of weeks and be really proud of how we did,” Kerr told reporters after the contest.

Australia has co-hosted this World Cup along with New Zealand, and the Matildas’ run to the tournament semifinal has proved to be one of the most intoxicating storylines for fans. Kerr played sparingly early in the tournament, because of a calf injury, before finally starting her team’s semifinal match against England.

Kerr scored in the 63rd minute of that contest, tying the game at 1, but England scored twice in the final 20 minutes to win. The third-place match provided one last opportunity for the Matildas to end the tournament on a positive note, but it wasn’t to be.

Still, Kerr believes the run was a positive showcase for Australia.

“The way the fans have got behind us, the way girls have carried themselves, I think we’ve proven to the world we are a footballing nation,” Kerr said. “We couldn’t get it done tonight, but hopefully we’ve inspired people for many years to come.”

She added: “It’s sad that it’s come to an end. This has been the best four weeks of our careers.”

Sam Kerr did all she could for Australia at the 2023 World Cup. And while the Matildas ultimately came up short, they still made their deepest run ever.

Nearly half the country watched the 3-1 loss to England in the World Cup — and the magnificent goal from Kerr. But that did not stop the disappointment from seeping in for the 29-year-old captain.

“All I can feel is disappointment right now,” Kerr told the Associated Press. “After we scored, it felt like it would have been a great match to watch, actually.”

Of course, one cannot mention Kerr’s World Cup without noting her limited minutes while dealing with a left calf injury. After missing the entirety of the group stage, she was used sparingly in the first two matches of the knockout rounds. But she made her first start of the tournament and played a full 90 minutes against England.

“I think I did everything that I could to be back in this tournament,” she said. Referring to a missed shot on goal late in the match, she added: “I would normally sink that, but I’ve trained maybe three or four times this whole World Cup. That obviously for me is normally my bread and butter, but unfortunately this World Cup hasn’t gone as planned for me.”

Her teammates kept her going during her absence from the pitch, she said. And it’s been amazing getting to watch women’s soccer in Australia rise to new heights as the Matildas have hosted the World Cup.

“That’s kind of the only thing keeping me smiling right now, the fact that we inspired a nation, everyone’s gotten behind us, the tournament has been amazing,” Kerr said. “I think for us, hopefully this has been life-changing for women’s football in Australia.

“I don’t think this was once in a lifetime. If you bring the product to the show, we’ve proven people will come out and support it. Hopefully we’ll get a few new fans that will stick around. Now it is time for funding and all of that stuff to be invested in the game because we’ve shown we can play the game.”

Sam Kerr leapt in the air and pumped her fist, celebrating her long-range, right-footed goal to tie the World Cup semifinal for Australia.

Then Kerr and her team came back down to earth. England scored twice in the second half, defeating the host Matildas, 3-1, to advance to Sunday’s championship match. Kerr sank to the pitch, wearing an expression of defeat as the Lionesses celebrated.

The Australian legend’s magic had run out.

Kerr missed the group stage of the World Cup with a calf injury, before finally entering late in Australia’s 2-0 win over Denmark in the Round of 16. She was subbed in early in the second half of the quarterfinal before converting a penalty kick to help the Matildas edge France in a dramatic shootout win.

The striker started for the first time of the tournament in the England game, and her 63rd minute goal breathed new life into the Australian side. But just eight minutes later, England’s Lauren Hemp scored to put the Lionesses ahead once again, and Alessia Russo’s 86th minute goal – seconds after Kerr’s missed shot off a corner kick – iced the game.

The defeat marks the end of the run for one of the most beloved international players.

Her goal against the Lionesses was a tour de force. After receiving the ball at midfield, Kerr dribbled toward two defenders, with a third on her back, and fired from several feet above the penalty arc. The ball curved around both defenders and screamed into the top right corner of the net, just past the outstretched arm of England goalkeeper Mary Earps.

England’s comeback was minutes away, but for a few brief moments Kerr soaked in the love from her home fans, a soccer queen assuming her throne.