Emma Hayes has right touch for U.S. women’s soccer, but Allianz Field is another early proving ground

The first-ever home game for the U.S. women’s soccer national team took place in Blaine in 1986 against Canada.

Legendary American striker Mia Hamm scored her 150th career goal in 2004 against Australia, also at the National Sports Center.

Carli Lloyd’s 316th and final appearance for the national team took place at Allianz Field in 2021 against South Korea.

South Korea returns to Allianz Field on Tuesday to face the United States. There have been some great moments for the national team here, as it will play in its 18th game in Minnesota, fifth-most of any state.

But there might not be a more important friendly for the national team played here than Tuesday’s, as Emma Hayes and her big personality are here to save the program.

This is not suggesting that the Americans have hit rock bottom, but the standards are high because the United States dominated on the international stage for more than 20 years. While the FIFA rankings continue to be kind — the U.S. currently is fourth in the world — the results have not been there. The U.S. has not won Olympic gold since 2012.

After winning its fourth World Cup in 2019, the USA was shockingly knocked out in 2023 in the round of 16 for the first time ever. Coach Vlatko Andonovski resigned amid criticism of his lineup choices and substitution patterns. True or not, the U.S. wasn’t playing cohesively under him. It was a team that deserved the hook off the world’s biggest stage.

U.S. Soccer is responding with the 47-year-old Hayes, whose run with Chelsea from 2012 to ’24 netted seven Women’s Super League titles, including the past five. Chelsea also won five Women’s FA Cup titles. In 2021, she was named the Best FIFA Football Coach for women.

Hayes is gregarious, self-deprecating and engaging. During her introductory news conference on Friday in Colorado, she said her passion for the sport began “the first minute I came out of my mum’s tummy.” She later drew laughs from reporters when she said, “Menopause is a killer,” when she couldn’t remember the year of a coaches convention where she first interacted with Mallory Swanson, who is now one of her key players.

Hayes, who is earning $1.6 million annually — making her the highest paid women’s soccer coach in the world — also views this opportunity to step away from the grind of club management to be more available for her 6-year-old son, Harry. She wishes it was with two sons. Harry’s twin brother, Albie, was stillborn, having died at 28 weeks. She didn’t inform her team until late in the season. All while doing all she could to make sure Harry was born healthy.

“That moment will never leave me and I feel sad for Harry, who doesn’t have a brother,” Hayes told the Guardian in 2022. “I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt now, but I accept it. I will still have a cry about it every birthday and Christmas. That’s normal. But for those first four years I was just trying to survive. I felt exhausted. But I woke up when Harry turned 4 this May. That was the first time I thought: ‘I’m back. I’m back!’ ”

Hayes gained perspective from the experience, understanding why mothers take time off after childbirth to deal with the emotional and physical challenges. She has been outspoken about support for athletes during pregnancies. Last week, FIFA announced new pay regulations to support female players and coaches through pregnancy, adoption and maternity.

Harry has been running around the team hotel during training while his mother completes the transition to international soccer. Hayes has a pragmatic approach to building a winner. She understands she can’t do it all herself. She believes special people throughout a program drive a club to success. So she has brought over a few of her Chelsea cohorts with her, an effort to strengthen the infrastructure of the national team setup.

Perhaps one of those special ones will be former Minnesota Aurora coach Nicole Lukic, who was hired in March as one of the program’s directors of talent identification.

Hayes returns to this country, where she coached at various levels from 2002 to 2010, finishing up with the Chicago Red Stars of the Women’s Professional Soccer league, a league that folded in 2012 and was replaced by the current National Women’s Soccer League.

She was named U.S. coach on Nov. 14 but asked to finish out the season with Chelsea, where she had signed a contract extension in 2021 that basically extended into forever. So she was on double duty, guiding Chelsea while communicating with interim coach Twila Kilgore on national team matters.

Now she’s learning about her new players on the fly. She led them to a 4-0 victory over South Korea on Saturday in Commerce City, Colo. Possession and movement were clearly better than during the previous World Cup. More fluid. More cohesive.

After Tuesday’s game, she will name a 18-player squad, plus four alternates, for the Paris Games.

Tuesday will be the last chance for players to make their case for the Olympics. Then we will see if Hayes can put the team on path to world dominance again. At least we know she will be congenial while tackling questions about the challenge.