Football needs great characters and, for 12 years, English women’s football was all the more interesting for the presence of one of the most charismatic coaches in the sport in the form of Emma Hayes; never afraid to speak her mind, never dull and scarcely ever beaten. Perhaps the Women’s Super League and the wider English game did not realise quite how much it was missing Hayes until she brought her Olympic champions to London and reminded everyone what a difference a sprinkle of personality can make in helping to grow a sport.
The match itself was rather unexciting, but the USA coach somehow made the occasion anything but. The tone was set at the start of the week when Hayes hosted a press conference in a pub in Camden. Where else? She joked about the venue smelling of “fart and feet”, before pouring some pints from behind the bar. It would be unfair to label the 12 current WSL managers as dull by comparison but it is undeniably true that none of them can yet grab a room’s attention quite like Hayes can, guarantee as many column inches or stir up quite so much attention for a friendly fixture.
