Twelve years ago Emma Hayes was sitting next to her father, Sid, at Wembley, watching the USA women’s team win their fourth Olympic gold medal. Hayes – to all intents and purposes unemployed, after she had been sacked by the Chicago Red Stars – leaned across to Sid and, as he recalled it, said: “Dad, you see those 50 people out there? I’ve coached 40 of them.”
It was a poignant moment for Sid, one he remembered in an interview with the Guardian in 2021 as the moment he truly understood just how good a coach she was.
