NEW YORK —
The women’s national soccer team hasn’t won an Olympic championship in 12 years, its longest drought ever. Yet for Emma Hayes, the woman tasked to get the U.S. back to the top of the medal podium, memories of the 2012 tournament have little to do with gold medals.
The Games were played in England that year and Hayes’ father, Sid, became enamored with the Americans. So much so that when Hayes took the head coaching job with the Chelsea women’s team that same summer, he urged her to remake the English game in the U.