Chelsea boss's next step to world domination

Emma Hayes has won almost all with her women’s side. Now she’s taking over the US team and bringing the game to a whole new level

- Dan Kilpatrick

HARRY KANE and Jude Bellingham will have a challenger as this country's biggest footballing exports when Emma Hayes leaves Chelsea to take charge of the USA women's team in May. Coaching the four-time world champions is the pinnacle of management in the women's game and, across the pond, the sport is bigger than men's football.

Hayes will be mandated with no less than returning the USWNT to the top of the world in 2027 after their underwhelming World Cup quarter-final exit in Australia in August - their worst performance at a finals - and before then she will also be expected to make a quick enough impression to lead the squad to gold at next summer's Paris Olympics. For Hayes, who began her coaching career in the States the move is a homecoming.

She said although she was born in the UK "she was made in America" and the Londoner is expected to decamp her family to Atlanta where US Soccer are building a base.