Change for Emma Hayes and the U.S. women’s national team started in the locker room.

After winning gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics, they took stock of the national team program by surveying players and staff. They asked questions like: What was working in their program? What could be done better? And, most importantly, what needed to happen next?

It quickly became clear to the U.S. head coach and her staff that they needed “to create a world where the female lens is at the heart of all we do.” After living and breathing this for two years with the senior national team, Hayes and her team are extending this blueprint as far as it can possibly go.

This means a lot coming specifically from Crystal

“She created something that didn’t exist before: this safe space of speaking about something very vulnerable, but making it almost feel like, ‘Oh, this is just normal conversation,’ and that’s the beauty of it,” said U.S. legend Crystal Dunn, who was part of the Olympic squad and previously played under Hayes at Chelsea. “She’s transformed what used to be normal and completely created something very new, and it was very refreshing.”