Emma Hayes has been officially named as the new head coach of the U.S. women’s national team. However, her duties as head coach do not begin until May — just two months before the U.S. women will be competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In the meantime, Twila Kilgore remains the interim head coach of the U.S. squad. And Hayes and Kilgore have plans to collaborate on team decisions until Hayes takes over. 

“I have the ability to reach out to her at any time she will make time for me at any point and vice versa. We are very collaborative. We’re sharing information, knowledge sharing, in terms of the roster,” Kilgore said. 

Hayes and Kilgore collaborated on the USWNT’s December camp roster that was released on Nov. 20. According to Kilgore, she made a roster and Hayes offered her thoughts. 

“So there’s a provisional roster that comes out first, which I prepared,” Kilgore said. “I was able to share my ideas with Emma, [Emma was] able to share her ideas with me and we picked this roster collaboratively and we will do so moving forward.”

Hayes and Kilgore will continue to collaborate even after Hayes assumes her position as head coach as Kilgore will remain an assistant coach for the USWNT. And they have a lot in common when it comes to their visions for the team. 

The December roster left off a notable quantity of USWNT veterans because Hayes and Kilgore have a similar idea; the team needs to be more creative when it comes to scoring chances. 

“I think obviously both Emma and Twila have got their ideas around creativity of the team,” said Matt Crocker, the sporting director of the U.S. Soccer Federation. “And you know, what I will say is that the conversations that they’ve had already, there’s a huge amount of alignment.”

Until May, though, Kilgore is still the interim head coach who handles much of the daily work of maintaining the team. But Kilgore has made it clear that the roster could change at any moment, either in her or Hayes’ hands. 

“I’m handling all the day to day and working within the group. So yes, I did call all the players that were in the previous camp that aren’t on the roster and explain to them why,” Kilgore said. “Those conversations are between coach and player but I will say that each and every one of them are professionals. They responded as professionals would they understand that we’re watching everything they do, everything matters, that they’re not out of the mix, and that there’s equal opportunity moving forward to make this roster.”

When the U.S. women’s national team announced their December roster this week, the last camp of the calendar year clearly marked a season of change. Former manager Vlatko Andonovski is long gone, his successor has been named, and a fresh group of players will have a chance to prove themselves before the work of 2024 begins.

Still, the process used for the most recent roster selection, and what comes next, is open for debate. The USWNT is still reeling from an uncharacteristic World Cup, in which the team won just one match before being eliminated in the Round of 16 at the hands of Sweden. The result warranted a shift change in direction, but the reality of the USWNT’s current position might require more incremental change.

The team’s upcoming friendlies against China PR are technically the first under new manager Emma Hayes, but the team will be managed by committee for the next six months. Interim manager Twila Kilgore will guide the squad through the 2024 Gold Cup, and Hayes will step in full-time in May, with four games remaining until the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The bottom line is that this schedule is necessary for the U.S. to land Hayes, U.S. Soccer’s preferred candidate by a mile. Hayes has an understanding of the U.S. development system and an impressive managerial resume with Chelsea FC that includes both season-long and Cup trophies. She has communicated bold opinions about larger systemic issues that have eroded the USWNT’s dominance on the world stage, and her ability to scout and develop players at the club level has few rivals.

“What became apparent was that the best candidate in this process wasn’t available right [away],” U.S. Soccer technical director Matt Crocker told the media this week. “But just seeing Twila evolve and develop into and show her leadership qualities, I became really confident that we could manage and have an interim plan that could ensure that we could have our cake and eat it.”

While U.S. Soccer is confident in the team’s long-term future, the current plan requires a tightrope walk on a short timeline. The USWNT’s 2023 World Cup performance has left the team bracing for transition both in personnel and in tactical approach, with some tough choices to make before the Olympic roster is set. Crocker has said he wants the U.S. to become a more possession-based team with the flexibility to handle different types of opponents. He has also acknowledged that, for Hayes to oversee those changes, the USWNT might have to de-prioritize Olympic gold.

“We can start to implement some of those changes both on the pitch and off the pitch that we want to see the team become in the future,” he said this week. “And it will be an evolving process that starts now, and you can see that from the roster that’s been picked.”

Kilgore told reporters on Monday that she created the provisional roster for this international break, and that list was sent to Hayes. The two coaches then consulted one another on the final 26-player list. Kilgore has been very cognizant of the job in front of her, first as a coach on staff for Andonovski’s tenure and now as the person who will be relied upon to make day-to-day decisions until Hayes arrives.

“I think it’s important to remember that nobody’s ever irreplaceable,” Kilgore said, “And the fact that Matt and Emma trust me to help move the team forward in the interim is really empowering.”

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Twila Kilgore has earned the respect of USWNT players in her time as interim coach. (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)

Kilgore has earned the opportunity to oversee the USWNT’s next phase, with players across the board responding positively to her stewardship of the team. But her handling of the two international windows prior to Hayes’ hiring also produced lingering questions.

Kilgore walked into a difficult situation, having to absorb a team coming off their worst-ever World Cup result after the resignation of their coach of the last four years. She clearly took a soft touch in the aftermath, building on a tactically conservative Round of 16 performance that produced more flashes of strong play than in the group stage. The U.S. also got a chance to say goodbye to two beloved teammates in Julie Ertz and Megan Rapinoe, a task that can distract even the most focused players, especially after an emotional tournament exit.

But then in the following international break, Kilgore fell into a common pitfall as a manager. Rather than taking the emotional boost from September to introduce a greater fluidity in the USWNT’s style of play, she continued with the hyper-pragmatic approach. She stuck very closely to the team’s World Cup starting lineups without a huge step forward from that group, leaving the last four friendlies feeling unsatisfactory for many.

Kilgore had said in September that she didn’t put too much weight into the team’s current 4-2-3-1 formation, intending for things to not be as stringent as in the last year of Andonovski’s tenure.

“Formation sometimes, it’s just five yards here or five yards there,” she said at the time. But the U.S. continued to struggle to score against Colombia in October, going three consecutive halves without a goal as players looked just as cautious in their positioning as ever.

An infusion of fresh talent assuaged some of the tactical issues, with San Diego Wave standout Jaedyn Shaw and new Chelsea signing Mia Fishel scoring and looking like exciting options for the future in the team’s attack. But the USWNT left October with many of the same questions that have plagued them since their World Cup disappointment.

December will provide another opportunity to dig into the USWNT’s current issues and look for their solutions. Many veterans were left off the roster, allowing experienced players to regain their legs and manage burnout after a taxing year while giving opportunities to newer faces that can provide different strengths. Who will be invited back into the fold in the new year remains to be seen, but it’s clear that whoever is in camp needs to be given a fresh influx of ideas both in and out of possession.

“I’m most excited to talk more football, and to continue to listen and learn about how [Hayes] wants us to play,” Kilgore said this week. “And those are all things that will happen more and more in the future when she’s not as tied to Chelsea.”

Hayes’ Chelsea commitments aren’t going anywhere in the short term, and the USWNT seen in December will be as much Kilgore’s as their new long-term manager’s. With more work to be done to become competitive again against the world’s best, the USWNT now begins the difficult balance of maintaining confidence in the current group while being open to growing pains. Kilgore’s ability to keep a steady hand on the wheel could make all the difference in 2024.

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

After Midge Purce was left off the U.S. women’s national team roster at the end of 2022, former head coach Vlatko Andonovski said she would have the chance to “fight for her spot.”

Almost a year later, Purce has done just that — and now she’ll be attending USWNT events as an NWSL Champion and the Championship MVP after she was named to the December training camp roster.

“What a great game [the NWSL Championship] was to watch live, in so many ways, and Midge had an excellent game, obviously earning MVP,” USWNT interim head coach Twila Kilgore said. “She did an excellent job making a case for herself and I would say that’s a message to everybody — that their performance and their day-to-day, what they’re doing matters, that we’re watching and that they’ll be rewarded appropriately for their work.”

Purce made the case for herself in the second half of the NWSL season after missing 10 weeks due to a torn quad through July. She rebounded well from her injury, scoring four goals in her 12 appearances for Gotham FC in the regular season. Leading up to the season, Purce made her ambitions clear. 

“Last year is not something that was enjoyable for me, it makes me sick,” Purce said. “This year I want to score goals on both the national team and for the club, I want to be a top player in both settings. That’s all I’m after.”

Purce lived up to her own expectations, including becoming the second player in league history to contribute two assists in a championship match. She assisted on both goals in Gotham’s 2-1 win over OL Reign to win the title. And she successfully fought for her USWNT roster spot. 

“I think Midge is a very special talent with very strong 1-v-1 ability, and she showcased that special quality,” Kilgore said. “But she also did a lot of defending in the game and was a big part of their overall team tactics, which I think is also important.”

Korbin Albert has been making waves with Paris Saint-Germain FC. Soon, the 20-year-old will look to make her mark on the U.S. women’s national team.

Albert was named to the USWNT’s December training camp roster on Monday afternoon, the first call-up of the midfielder’s career. U.S. interim head coach Twila Kilgore said Monday that she’s looked to expedite Albert’s path to the senior team roster since she stepped in for Vlatko Andonovski in August. Emma Hayes, currently the head coach at Chelsea, will assume USWNT head coaching duties in May.

“When I first took over as interim, one of the first things that we did with the provisional roster was add Korbin,” Kilgore said. “She’s somebody that we’ve been watching, in terms of the whole technical staff, for a good amount of time now. Her roles have been increasing with her club. Obviously she’s getting good Champions League games.”

Albert played Division I soccer at Notre Dame for two seasons before signing with PSG in January 2023. Albert collected many accolades during her two years with the Irish. She was named ACC Midfielder of the Year and a First Team All-American in 2022. That same year, she was a finalist for the Hermann Trophy, an award given out annually to the best female and male college soccer players in the country.

Albert has made four starts and seven total appearances for PSG this season, including in a Champions League group stage match last week against Ajax and fellow USWNT prospect Lily Yohannes.

Albert has also been a member of the U.S. youth national team pool from 2015-2019. She made six appearances for the U.S. U-20 team, two of which came during the U-20 World Cup in Costa Rica in 2022.

“She has a little bit of versatility in the midfield, playing a little bit lower or higher at times depending on what the team’s needs are, and Emma and I were in agreement that this was the right next step for both Korbin and the team,” Kilgore said.

Emma Hayes is the next head coach of the U.S. women’s national team. But she will not join the USWNT until two months before the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Twila Kilgore, who has served as interim head coach since Vlatko Andonovski’s resignation in August, will continue in that role through May 2024, at which point she will join Hayes’ staff as an assistant coach. So far, Kilgore has led the team to a 3-1-0 (W-D-L) record in friendlies against South Africa and Colombia in September and October.

U.S. Soccer’s willingness to wait for Hayes shows just how highly the federation thinks of its new hire. But it also throws a wrench into the preparations for the Olympics, which begin at the end of July. Hayes is committed to Chelsea through at least May 18, which marks the final match of the Women’s Super League season.

“This is a unique situation, but the team is in safe hands with Twila,” U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker said in a news release. “Her stewardship will be crucial during this period as we are focused on success at the Olympics. Emma has endorsed Twila, she will be a key part of Emma’s staff when she arrives and moving forward, and we are excited for what’s to come with our USWNT program.”

Hayes will coach the USWNT in four matches ahead of the Summer Games, two in June and two in July.

Tobin Heath, who won the 2015 and 2019 World Cup titles with the USWNT, approved of Hayes’ hiring on “The RE-CAP Show,” her podcast with Christen Press. But she also thinks it means that U.S. Soccer is “sacrificing an Olympics” for long-term gains.

“And that’s really hard, I think, for any U.S. women’s national team fan or even player to grapple with, is this idea that this is a long-term play,” Heath said. “Because that’s what it looks like. She doesn’t have the time to go into an Olympics and win.

“Could the U.S. women’s national team still win an Olympics with absolutely no coaching? Yeah, Of course. And also the Olympics isn’t as big of a deal as the World Cup. It’s not as strong of a competition for a lot of reasons. But ultimately, it’s not a good signal for the short-term development of course-correcting what I think is a team that is really lost right now.”

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Twila Kilgore will continue as interim head coach for the USWNT until May 2024. (Brad Smith/Getty Images for USSF)