When Emma Hayes, the U.S. women’s national soccer team coach, kept the starters in the lineup over a grueling stretch of successive 90-minute Olympic soccer games in France, murmurs rose that the team was on its way to an exit, ousted by exhaustion.
Yet the team won the gold medal, the latest recipients of Hayes’s successful coaching methodology — one embracing “positive discomfort,” as she put it in interviews. The idea is that full potential lies on the other side of being challenged, yet it’s different from “no pain, no gain.” The team also boasts epic fun, goofiness, humanity and cohesion. When asked what propelled their trophy, Hayes, who is considered one of the world’s best coaches, replied, “Love.”
