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United States women’s national team coach Emma Hayes said on Monday that she was “unwell” before taking on her new role, but experiences so far have helped her get her “mojo back.”
After the USWNT’s historic collapse at the 2023 World Cup in the round of 16, Hayes has moved the team past defeat with a gold medal at the 2024 Olympics and a new-look rebuild.
For Hayes’ career, it has been a turnaround as well. After leaving Chelsea in 2024 following 12 years and five straight WSL titles, Hayes was awarded her first Ballon d’Or Coach of the Year award last month.
“I feel like I’ve got my mojo back and my smile back and joy back that I didn’t realize how much I’d lost in that,” Hayes told a news conference on Monday at a pub in Camden, London, adding that the stress of the Chelsea job affected her health.
“I definitely didn’t feel healthy at the end. I felt as you felt quite unwell at the end of my time at Chelsea, just felt like, I’m not going to say it’s pressure, I just think it’s just the stress, the toll it took on me.”
The USWNT face England on Nov. 30 at Wembley, marking the first time Hayes will face the reigning European Champions as head coach. The two teams last met in a friendly in October 2022 at Wembley with England winning 2-1.
“And mojo means that I am loving football more than ever and I’m clear about all the things that I want to do,” she said.
“I didn’t know what to expect. I was a little bit afraid of how’s this rhythm going to affect me — I’m so used to getting in the car, driving to the train ground. I worried that it’s not 12 years, probably 25 years of doing that, six, seven days a week,” she said.
“I worried about that for about four seconds and then I said, okay, what’s the benefits? I get to get up and breathe, not rush. I get to take Harry [Hayes’ son] to school, I get to go to the gym, I get to create my schedule in and around those things. I don’t sacrifice the things that make me feel healthy. “