Emma Hayes says opportunities for USWNT players to play in Europe should be ‘celebrated’

Emma Hayes gets asked one question a lot, or, at least, many versions of the same question.

What does the U.S. women’s national team head coach have to say about American players leaving the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) for Europe?

“It’s a subject I’ve spoken about so many times,” Hayes told reporters ahead of the NWSL Championship in San Jose last weekend. “My job as the national team coach is to support the players in whatever they want to do, and it’s not going to change.”

This question has followed Hayes all year, initially sparked by Naomi Girma and Jenna Nighswonger leaving their respective NWSL clubs for Chelsea and Arsenal. This came up again when Alyssa Thompson made her record move from Angel City FC to Chelsea in September.

The conversation has again resurfaced now that Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman, who has expressed interest in playing in Europe, is officially a free agent. As she weighs up her future, European clubs have approached the 23-year-old, and one Gainbridge Super League club, DC Power, has offered the star a contract neither the Spirit nor any NWSL club could counter, according to sources who have been briefed on negotiations.

In Rodman’s case, that conversation has hinged around the NWSL salary cap, which limits what clubs can offer players. European clubs have no similar restrictions. Hayes recently expressed her support for Rodman, but declined to speculate on what the NWSL should do.

She did, however, have thoughts on that question she keeps receiving.

To Hayes, who was Chelsea’s manager for 12 years, the reignited conversation about U.S. players exiting the NWSL, and what that means for the league at large, fails to consider the bigger picture — that, in the history of women’s football, players pushed for the opportunities current players now have. This, she stressed, should be celebrated.

In speaking with reporters last weekend, Hayes wondered aloud why her counterpart, U.S. men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino, whose USMNT pool includes several players who play abroad, wasn’t frequently asked the same question.

“It almost feels like we always have to ask that question because it’s women,” Hayes said. “Now, all of a sudden, women get the opportunity to choose. We should celebrate the position that women are in, to be able to do that. We shouldn’t shoehorn it. We can have an incredible league and still have incredible U.S. women’s national team players that play both here and abroad.”

There was a time when playing on the U.S. women’s national team was intricately linked to playing in the NWSL. The U.S. Soccer Federation once subsidized the salaries of two dozen national team players, which meant U.S. Soccer could call them to training camps outside of FIFA windows. Foreign clubs were not required to release players in such a way. This, ultimately, created a culture where, to reach the U.S. senior team, players needed to be stateside.

It’s why Lindsey Heaps, one of the current captains of the USWNT, signed with the Portland Thorns in 2016 after four years at Paris Saint-Germain in France. She aspired to make that year’s Olympic roster and made the move after a conversation with then-U.S. head coach Jill Ellis.

The arrangement between U.S. Soccer and the NWSL ended in 2022, when the federation and USWNT Players’ Association reached a new collective bargaining agreement establishing equal pay and effectively lifting any assumed restrictions on U.S. players and the leagues they played in.

“I have the conversation with the players, they’re so grateful to the generations before them (for) putting them in the position to be able to bring to life what might be childhood dreams,” Hayes said. “I always compare it to studying abroad. It’s funny — if our kids go and study abroad (and) say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna spend a year abroad in France,’ parents will go, ‘Amazing!’ But when it comes to soccer, it’s like you can’t leave.

“It doesn’t mean we’re always going to lose people forever, and it doesn’t mean we’re gonna lose everyone. We just have to accept that different things matter to different people.”

Hayes referenced 21-year-old Jaedyn Shaw, who recently made one of the biggest intra-league moves in NWSL history. Gotham FC acquired Shaw from North Carolina Courage in a record $1.25 million transfer. Shaw has thrived with Gotham and was critical to helping the team secure their second NWSL Championship last weekend. Hayes has praised Shaw’s decision and Gotham for identifying a player who has fitted so well into their environment.

Similarly, Thompson has thrived on the pitch at Chelsea. Thompson, like Shaw, forwent college soccer. But Thompson was drafted by her hometown NWSL club, Angel City FC, as the first overall pick in the 2023 NWSL Draft. It wasn’t long before she was teammates with her sister, Giselle. A move to Europe offered her a new challenge far from home.

Hayes has been supportive of both players’ decisions and used their cases as examples when making her point. “I find it fascinating,” Hayes said. “It’s a question that keeps coming up, but it’s a question that doesn’t get asked in the men’s game as much. I think we have to ask ourselves, why do we keep asking this question? It’s almost like, as women, it’s this sense of duty, instead of, let’s celebrate the options that are in front of them.”

While in San Jose last weekend, Hayes appeared on the pre-game NWSL Championship broadcast on CBS and was asked by Ali Riley, one of the match analysts, what advice her former coach gave players when they were weighing major career changes.

“I do what I always do, which is listen, and try to work through all of the different talking points,” Hayes responded. “For some of them, they’re working that out. They’re trying to work through what it is they want and what they need, and they have a lot of people to support with that.”

This could vary from helping them navigate their futures or footballing advice within their existing environments. “Some of it will just be to seek to understand something they’ve always wanted to do for them,” Hayes continued. “Some players want to go and play abroad. They’ve always wanted to do that, whereas some players have no desire whatsoever to leave the U.S.

“It’s finding what works for them, and then just helping guide them the best way that I can.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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