The Inside Story of how Emma Hayes built Chelsea
As the USA head coach prepares to return to London with her national team to face Lionesses, read the story of what happened the last time she made the trip across the Atlantic...
As Emma Hayes prepares to walk out at a familiar arena to her in the form of Wembley Stadium on Saturday night, she does so as an Olympic gold medalist with the USA, but her legacy in South West London will be far from forgotten.
Since winning her first piece of silverware midway through 2015 at the same venue she will grace on Saturday, Hayes began to lay the foundations three years earlier when she took on the job post-2012 Olympics, returning from a near decade in the USA, where she coached the Long Island Lady Riders, Iona Gaels and the Chicago Red Stars.
That legacy will go beyond the multiple Women’s Super League, FA Cup and Continental Cup titles, the origins of which stretch back to the moment she walked through the door, inheriting a Chelsea side sitting closer to the bottom of the table than the top.
One man well placed to offer a view on how things changed is Robbie Udberg, who had been working in the Chelsea girls’ academy before Hayes’s arrival and become a pivotal part of her first coaching staff until he departed in 2018.
Udberg had taken charge for one game against Arsenal in between the resignation of Matt Beard and hiring of Hayes, admitting he had “cobbled together a group of staff” for the match after many left with Beard.
Check out over 100 more unique stories in WFC’s Premium section, available for just £45 for 12 months, paid in one go, or a £6 a month rolling subscription.
All subscriptions come with a 7-day free trial to allow you to explore our full archive.
Plus, guarantee you everything that is to come over the next 12 months…
As part of a Premium subscription, you can access my exclusive interview with Emma during her final week at Chelsea.
“For me, personally and professionally, she was transformational,” says Udberg. “She said ‘look, I need someone who knows the club. I’ve heard good things about you and would like your involvement to be bigger than it is now’.
“My first impression was ‘this is someone who has got a plan’. Her first focus was putting some structure to the department which didn’t exist prior to that.”
Having returned from the USA where the game was well ahead of England from a professional point of view at that time, as well as having a spell as assistant at Arsenal, the club closest to a professional programme in England.
Hayes set about replicating what she had experienced in her new home, with the caveat being a lack of support from the club for the women’s team up until that point.
Chelsea Ladies, as they were known in 2012, was run by the Chelsea Foundation, headed by Simon Taylor, and didn’t come under the banner of the club itself until several years later.
Hayes brought in Paul Green, previously head coach at Doncaster Rovers Belles, who she had met several times and been impressed by, while goalkeeper coach Stuart Searle also became a permanent member of the staff after working in the boys’ academy.
It was a foursome which would stand the test of time, with Green still at the club as General Manager, and Searle having only departed to join Hayes in the USA.
But Hayes went further with her desire for change.
Check out other recent Inside Story features…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Women's Football Chronicles to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.