Coach Hayes and her USWNT players have to weather storms within their squad, while they face Japan in the Olympic quarter-finals. For starters, Emma Hayes is still unsure if the injured Jaedyn Shaw and Tierna Davidson will start in the QF. Besides, the 47-year-old coach will also miss ace midfielder Sam Coffey in the crucial Japan game, as she is serving a double-yellow card ban. The Britishwoman could have avoided Coffey’s doom, had she rotated her squad in the final group game against Australia, says USMNT veteran Herculez Gomez.

During his recent appearance on the USWNT-Japan preview on ESPN FC, Herculez Gomez disapproved of Emma Hayes’ obsession with not rotating her squad in Olympic games. “I got two bones to pick. One is with Emma Hayes and the other is with the Olympics itself,” said Herculez Gomez. He added, “Sam Coffey is suspended. Emma Hayes didn’t make any rotation and that was forced to an injury. She left Sam Coffey there and Trinity Rodman in yellows. Sam Coffey can’t play the next game. 

Thereafter, the ESPN host lifted the lid on the problem he had with the Olympic organizers. “You already know you only get 18 players on this roster, that’s so thin. And now you can’t bring up an alternate because it’s not injury-related. So they are having 17 players for this game,” Gomez said, referring to the USWNT-Japan game. Indeed, the entire mishap could have been avoided if Hayes did not risk an already yellow-carded Coffey against Australia.

However, the former Chelsea manager believes it is of tremendous importance to not rotate her squad and start the same set of players every other game.

Why is Emma Hayes so adamant about not rotating her squad?

In a pre-training interview on Friday, coach Emma Hayes proclaimed she would surely start Trinity Rodman against Japan. If Rodman picks a yellow in the QF, she will sit out like Sam Coffey, if the US were to reach the semi-finals. Yet, Hayes thinks it is foolish to rotate Rodman and bring in someone else. “I mean, Trin’s (Trinity Rodman) is on a yellow. Do you want me to sit her out (tomorrow)? You can’t. You got to play football. If you look at last year’s World Cup, the two teams in the final made the least amount of changes in their squad,” the US coach said.

Besides, the 47-year-old also said that starting the same players in different games helps breed chemistry between them. And chemistry, according to Hayes, yields creativity. Team USA has indeed been at their creative best, as they scored a whopping nine goals in three group games at the Olympics. But will the same strategy work against a mighty Japanese side? Only time will tell if Hayes and co. would prevail and if Gomez was right to pick her bones.