Emma Hayes admitted it might be a fairytale finish to her Chelsea profession by lifting the Ladies’s Champions League for the primary time on the finish of the season.
Hayes will finish her 12-year stick with the west London membership after this marketing campaign to take over as supervisor of the US girls’s nationwide workforce.
The Champions League is the one main trophy that has eluded the 47-year-old throughout that point, with the Blues having misplaced 4-0 within the 2021 remaining to Barcelona and reached the semi-finals on three different events.
Talking forward of Chelsea’s opening Group D fixture in opposition to Actual Madrid, Hayes advised a press convention: “It might be a fairytale to win it, in fact. However I did not develop up liking fairytales – my sister did.
“I’d love nothing greater than to be in a successful place with this workforce.”
Chelsea beat Actual 2-0 at Kingsmeadow final season courtesy of targets from Sophie Ingle and Erin Cuthbert earlier than they drew 1-1 within the Spanish capital.
And Hayes, who highlighted the specter of left-back Olga Carmona, believes the expertise of taking part in Wednesday’s opponents has helped her aspect’s preparations.
She added: “Now we have analysed final season’s match and Actual Madrid’s different matches, together with this weekend’s match (7-1 win v Actual Sociedad). We all know what to anticipate.
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With Emma Hayes departing Chelsea on the finish of the season, Rosie and Mollie Kmita have a look at the affect she has had on girls’s soccer and who could possibly be subsequent in line to fill her function.
“I believe having been right here helps, it is one thing acquainted, however we do not underestimate them.
“They’ve many qualities, however I believe they’ve the most effective on the extremes. The power to go upwards, particularly on the left with Olga.
“They’ve gamers on the lookout for the again and placing balls into the world and they’re superb in transition.”
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Manchester Metropolis boss Gareth Taylor says he was shocked by Emma Hayes’ announcement that she will probably be leaving Chelsea on the finish of the season.
Chelsea captain Millie Vibrant admitted the information of Hayes’ departure is “devastating”.
She stated: “It has been a little bit of a whirlwind. I used to be devastated.
“She is a mentor, a coach, a good friend, life coach – it is greater than soccer taking part in below her. It’s the laborious a part of soccer. I really feel privileged to have performed below her for thus lengthy.”
Evaluation: Hayes a pioneer in English girls’s soccer
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Arsenal head coach Jonas Eidevall says their victory over Manchester Metropolis is a ‘robust assertion’, and pays tribute to departing Chelsea boss Emma Hayes.
Sky Sports activities’ Charlotte Marsh:
“It’s uncommon for a supervisor to announce their departure from a membership so early within the season – however Emma Hayes has all the time damaged the mould.
“And in a whole lot of methods, seven months is required to try to comprehend simply how massive of an affect Hayes has not solely had at Chelsea, however throughout girls’s soccer in England as a complete.
“Her numbers for the Blues communicate for themselves – trophies upon data upon titles. And would not it’s the top to the fairy story if she bowed out by successful the membership their first Champions League title?
“By reworking Chelsea into the ladies’s powerhouse they’re, Hayes has championed and pioneered the requirements that your entire sport is now being held to.
“Participant well being throughout the board, services, coaching strategies, staffing, transfers – you may see Hayes’ affect in every space. Ladies’s soccer would merely not be the place it’s with out her lighting the way in which.
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Sky Sports activities Information’ Anton Toloui explains why Chelsea boss Emma Hayes can be an ideal match for the USA nationwide workforce job.
“She has been on the forefront of the expansion of ladies’s soccer, a voice others flip to for opinion and course on the largest points going through not solely the sport, however girls total.
“Hayes too has proven that this could all be achieved as a mom, as somebody who battles in opposition to well being points and private loss identical to us all. None of it has impacted her potential to do her job efficiently and displays the human ingredient that may generally be lacking in soccer.
“Her confirmed transfer to the USA affords her a brand new problem and one which will probably be extremely thrilling to observe unfold.
“However for now, the tributes and goodbyes will come flooding in over the approaching months and rightly so. Chelsea and ladies’s soccer have quite a bit to thank Hayes for.”