What Emma Hayes’ ‘driven’ approach to commentating tells us about the USWNT coach

Sporting a Chelsea tracksuit, Emma Hayes would pull up at Eurosport’s studios in Feltham, West London, on a three-wheel motorcycle. She may have just come from coaching the Chelsea women’s team, or she rode in from Covent Garden in central London where she worked for the family’s currency exchange business. Still in her early thirties, she would take her seat in a small booth next to commentator Tim Caple and hold the microphone to her lips.

“If you see something that is important to you, tell me,” was Caple’s instruction before Hayes’ first commentary game in 2006.

“To get somebody to sit in a booth who’s used to watching games from the touchline is not easy,” Caple tells The Athletic. “But it was an easy transition for her. Some people take that role as, ‘I’m being paid a few hundred pounds to rock up, sit here and talk cliches’, but she was never like that.”

Having worked with Hayes from 2006 to 2018, Caple describes her as “well organised”, “studious”, “focused”, “driven” and “never late”. They watched a variety of women’s competitions: from the Frauen-Bundesliga to European Championships and World Cups. It was a good scouting exercise for a young manager.

Back then, the exposure of women’s football was completely different to what it is now. “Nobody was interested,” says Caple. “Emma didn’t have a flash car, there was no money then. There was no glamour, no pretentiousness, it wasn’t as if she walked into the office: ‘Here I am, I have arrived, manager of Chelsea’.”

No cars were sent to pick guests up, no green room with food or tea and coffee. They would leave the studio in the dark after midnight having covered teams such as Russia’s WFC Rossiyanka in the second round of the Women’s Champions League played on a pitch barely lit by the floodlights. There was no multi-camera angle, forcing commentators to squint to read the players’ names on the backs of their shirts.

Complete data sets for women’s footballers did not exist and have not done so until recent years. Even major tournament press pack stats were scarce, says Caple. “There were no notes, no up-to-date player profiles.” But Hayes did her prep, used her knowledge from her coaching experience in the United States and spoke to contacts about players. “I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it is when you’re talking about the Uzbekistan Under-17 vs Brazil Under-17,” says Caple who remembers Hayes doing keepy-uppies in the office and casually slipping into Spanish, much to his surprise.

“She never sounded flustered cutting her teeth on those tournaments. You learn a lot: no stats, no background, nothing to say, ostensibly not particularly good football and you have to make it good. That’s where Emma will have honed skills because you aren’t given anything, you have to make the best of what you’ve got.” Her late father Sid would listen and offer feedback, as would friends and players too.

Since working for Eurosport covering the 2007 Women’s World Cup, Hayes has covered women’s and men’s major tournaments for BBC Radio 5 Live and ITV in Britain, and ESPN in the U.S.

The 47-year-old might have been providing viewers with tactical analysis at the Olympic football in Paris, just as she did for the opening game of London 2012, but instead, on Tuesday, she will lead the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) from the touchline in their semi-final against Germany.

“TV co-commentary is to tell the viewer something they can’t see and don’t know,” says Rob Nothman, a commentary coach. “It’s to add value to the pictures and not state the obvious.” Easier said than done.

Hayes’ situation was unique because she was commentating while managing England’s best women’s domestic team. On the mic she articulated the inner workings of a manager’s brain, thinking two steps ahead, pointed out players’ actions off the ball and provided a tactical awareness along with digestible explanations.

“People really enjoyed her commentary for that attention to detail because she doesn’t deal in football cliches when it comes to analysing football,” says commentator Seb Hutchinson. “I feel safe working with Emma because I can keep it really simple, I know she will go into detail to add that extra layer if needs be.”

An hour before kick-off, the duo will usually settle into their commentary position and do all the technical checks. Hayes is proactive in her questioning: What do I hear? Which wire is what? Who are these voices in my ear? (Normally the director and producer on talkback.)

But she is more focused on what is happening on the pitch. Her preparation comprises a folder filled with tactical formations and game plans which Hutchinson describes as “some of the most impressive” he’s seen.

During Euro 2020, former Chelsea and England player turned pundit Karen Carney gave viewers a glimpse of Hayes’ commentary prep, as shown in the tweet below.

Still thinking about this little glimpse into @emmahayes1 prep for co-comms last night..

via Karen Carney’s insta pic.twitter.com/sb0mXZVaPu

— Molly McElwee (@molly_mcelwee) June 29, 2021

“If you’re a team playing a game she’s analysing, you better be prepared because she will expose your tactical frailties very, very quickly,” says Hutchinson. “That’s part of her day job.”

As the team line-ups come in, before going on air, discussions in the green room regarding different tactics take place. Hayes would grab little packets of Haribo to represent positions and show what she means by in and out of possession, for example.

“We’re talking about a titan, in particular in women’s football, who has won almost everything in the game and has been consistently successful,” says Hutchinson. “When you see her close at hand analysing the game, you understand why.

“When she talks, you listen. She doesn’t turn on a persona when she’s on the mic. This is Emma Hayes you’re hearing, the real woman.”

“She doesn’t waste words and she tells you what she thinks,” adds Nothman. “That isn’t as common as you may think among broadcasters. It is not easy to be a co-commentator or a pundit, especially when you are still heavily involved in the game.

“For perfectly understandable reasons, current managers or players often speak with the handbrake on for fear of saying something that could upset someone they may face in the future. Occasionally some pundits dance around a subject because they feel awkward telling the unvarnished truth. To be fair but critical occasionally is a difficult balancing act.”

Although Hayes didn’t feel like she was doing anything extraordinary, viewers found her blunt approach refreshing during the men’s Euro 2020, which was delayed to 2021 owing to Covid-19. She was subsequently named 2021 Broadcast Sport Awards Pundit of the Year for her ITV coverage.

But the perfect combination, according to Nothman, is for co-commentators and pundits to be “engaging, humorous and actually look as if they want to be there”. He adds: “The viewer at home is watching football primarily for one reason: they love it. It is great if the pundit can communicate that love and enthusiasm as well.”

Asked why Hayes would finish her working day as a coach or in Covent Garden and then travel to commentate on a low-profile game at 10pm in a cubby hole, Caple replied: “Oh, she loved it.”

The other commentators agree. “She is engaged in the game, incredibly animated during a match, on and off air,” says commentator Vicki Sparks. “I love her energy. She brings her A game to everything she does.”

In one 2019 World Cup game for BBC Radio 5 Live, Sparks recalls Hayes being particularly interested in a team’s formation change. Hayes grabbed a pen frantically starting drawing a diagram on a scrap of paper.

“It felt like she was infuriated by what she was seeing tactically, so much so that she needed to express it via the medium of drawing, as much as communicating it verbally on air,” says Sparks who had one eye on Hayes but also had to contend with keeping up with the run of play.

“She can’t step away from that tactical brain. She becomes so involved, she’s not a passive observer.”

“She’s in it (the game), she knows how it works,” says Hutchinson. “There’s no substitute for that experience.” Although Hayes maintains her professionalism, trying to be objective, Hutchinson has become accustomed to spotting when Hayes is interested in a player.

From the moment the pair commentated on England against Canada in the 2022 Arnold Clark Cup, Hutchinson knew something was up. “We were discussing who might be player of the tournament, and Kadeisha Buchanan was high up the list,” he says. “But I also think deep down, Emma didn’t want to draw too much attention to Buchanan in case it flagged to others: this is a prominent player.” Buchanan joined Chelsea from Lyon later that summer.

Kadeisha Buchanan impressed in 2022, but Hayes was coy (Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images)

Other times Hayes has thrown in a cheeky line, like when Lauren James scored for England in their 6-1 win over China at the 2023 World Cup. “I hope whichever club has this player signed her to a long-term contract,” she said knowing James had recently penned a new deal with Chelsea. That sense of fun transcends off air too.

“Karen Carney will back me up with this,” recalls Hutchinson. “Three of us were sitting in the green room and we played a game where I had to try and guess the player they may be about to sign. I knew Emma would never confirm it. The clues were all loaded. Is she playing for a club on the continent? Does she play for a NWSL side in North America? We got to Cat Macario.” The USWNT player signed for Chelsea last year.

Sparks admits she was a little nervous before commentating alongside Hayes for the first time at the 2019 World Cup, given her “big personality” and “huge pedigree in the game”. “It’s not like they’ve retired and they’re transitioning into broadcasting,” she says. But what she liked was the open debate Hayes encouraged off-air. After England had lost to the US, the BBC team were sitting in the hotel bar dissecting the game. Hayes shared her opinion but Sparks didn’t agree and told Hayes just as much.

“Vicki, you have just slide-tackled me!” replied Hayes.

“It was a nice touch of humour in a group discussion,” says Sparks.

Hayes includes her commentators in the discussion and is curious about others, whether that be about football, family or sampling Hutchinson’s green juice he had made from his vegetable patch. But Nothman also notes it takes two to tango.

“You’ve got to give a lot of credit to the commentators alongside her, who have clearly made her feel comfortable performing this particular skill,” he says. “I don’t care who you are when you first start doing it. You will need to be working with somebody who relaxes you, empowers you, and makes you feel 100 per cent comfortable.”

Managing the biggest team in women’s football in a semi-final clash with Germany is a far cry from the days when she was juggling coaching with working in currency and commentating in the evenings. But 12 years on from calling the opening game at the London Olympics — the last time the USWNT won — Hayes might secure one of the most precious currencies of all: gold.

(Top photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images))