Iconic Women’s Football Coaches
Written by; Tao MacLeod
Women’s football is on the rise. There have been many great strides made towards equality, with increases to investment and all of the things that go along with that. Greater levels of funding have helped a lot and has had a variety of knock on affects. The improvements in the standard of the matches has been obvious, better facilities can be seen across the board, research into injury prevention and professional contracts for the players has all been happening over the recent years. One of the things that we haven’t got equality of yet, is the sense of history and prestige in the women’s game. As fans we don’t know all of the stories, we don’t have that sense of the days of old. The past achievements of the former personalities haven’t yet been chronicled in the same manner or depth as in the men’s game. This is starting to change, but without much success so far.
Some of the main contributors to the development of the women’s game have been the coaches. They have stood by their players through thick and thin, provided morale support and tactical guidance. The coach sets the culture within the squad, picks the team and lives or dies by each and every decision. This is a celebration of these people, who have often gone under the radar for far too long. I’ve placed them in alphabetical order. The team name, or names that I have placed in brackets next to each person listed are the sides that they are best known for having coached. Here is the Half Court Press selection for the most iconic women’s football coaches of all time.
Jill Ellis (United States Women’s National Team/USWNT)
An Anglo-American coach, Ellis was born in Folkestone, on the south-coast of England. Whilst growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, she played a variety of sports, including netball and field hockey. However, like many women who are involved in football, she would have had to deal with the sexist attitudes of the time to what activities young girls and ladies should and could participate in. It was her father and brother who inspired her to play the game, with her dad having acted as a coach himself, becoming an assistant to the USWNT in the early 2000s.
The Ellis family emigrated to the United States in 1981, where she latterly attended the College of William and Mary in Northern Virginia. It was here that she spent her college career, playing as a forward. She started coaching at the young age of 22, becoming the assistant coach of the NC State Wolfpack in 1988, also taking on similar positions at the Maryland Terrapins and Virginia Cavaliers. It was her role as head coach of UCLA Bruins where she started to find some success. Jill Ellis won the NSCAA National Coach of the Year in 2000, before leading her side to the Pacific-10 Conference title for six years in a row, between 2003 and 2008.
As an international coach Ellis had a variety of positions within the USWNT youth sides between 2000 and 2010, becoming the assistant coach of the senior team in 2008, where she was a part of the Olympic gold medal winning programme and then again in 2011. She was appointed as her country’s head coach in 2014. It was here that she led her national team to several major tournaments including the CONCACAF Championship in 2014 and two FIFA World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019. In these same two years Jill Ellis was also named FIFA World Women’s Coach of the Year.
Emma Hayes (Chelsea Ladies)
Hailing from the borough of Camden in London, she was a midfielder in the Arsenal ladies academy. After an ankle injury sustained on a skiing trip when she was 17, Hayes’s playing career was cut short before it even got started. However, the inability to play opened up coaching opportunities at a young age. Emma took on coaching roles whilst studying at Liverpool Hope University College and then around her hometown in London. In 2002, at the age of 26, she moved to the USA and was named the youngest coach in the USL W-League when hired as the manger of Long Island Lady Riders. This led to stints at Iona Gaels between 2003 and 2005 and the Chicago Red Stars between 2008 and 2010.
The football structures in the United States at this time were amongst the strongest in the world, with a higher standard of play and professionalism than in England. This would have provided Hayes with a great place to learn her trade, whilst in her 20’s and 30’s. In 2012, at the age of 36, already with 10 years worth of coaching experience, she returned to England to manage Chelsea in the Women’s Super League (WSL). It was here that she gained national recognition through a huge amount of success. Since her arrival in West London Chelsea has won a Community Shield, two League Cups, five FA Cup, seven WSL titles and the WSL Spring Series (a short form of the division as the FA re-formatted the league structure). No other coach has won more than Hayes in England. She achieved the FA WSL Manager of the Season award six times and in 2021 was named the Best FIFA Football Coach. The following year she was awarded an OBE.
One things that has so far eluded Emma Hayes has been the UEFA Champions League, however this will have to wait. She has recently been hired to take over the USWNT. One of the top jobs in world football, Hayes will have the chance to win the World Cup and the Olympic Games (a tournament with a lot more prestige in the women’s game). She will be missed in her home country. As one of the foremost authorities on women’s football, she has worked as a pundit on mainstream media in recent years and her personality cones across as vibrant, enthusiastic and very intelligent. As a Londoner myself I love how, despite her vast travels, she has kept her strong accent. It strikes me as a mark of authenticity. She has also done a lot in the development of women’s football, as it becomes more professional, including programmes to help with menstrual cycles. Men hired to be a part of the support staff have to take educational lessons on what female athletes have had to go through in their lives before starting work. Such innovations have been pushed and celebrated by Emma Hayes.
Silvia Neid (Germany Women)
As a coach she has only ever worked on the international stage, having never managed a club, or domestic side. As a player, she acted as a midfielder for SV Bergisch Gladbach 09 and TSV Siegen, winning several league and cup titles over a 16 year career. Winning 111 caps for the German national team Neid was a part of the squad that took home three European Championships between 1989 and 1995.
Upon retirement Silvia went to work directly for the German Football Association, within the national team set-up. As manager of the youth sides she oversaw victories in three Under-19 European Championships in he early 2000s and the 2004 Under-20 Word Cup. More was to follow, as in 2005 she took on the top job. As the manager of the senior national team Neid oversaw three victories in the Algarve Cup (an invitational tournament), two victories in the UEFA Women’s Championships, as well as the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup. In addition to this the Olympic team won bronze in Beijing 2008 and the all important gold medal in Rio 2016, making her one of the most successful German coaches since reunification. In terms of individual accolades Silvia Neid was awarded the FIFA World Coach of the Year (Women) in 2010, 2013 and 2016.
Hope Powell (England Women)
A Londoner who was raised on a Peckham council estate, she spent the entirety of her playing career in the British capital city. She had stints with Millwall Lionnesses (twice), Friends of Fulham, Bromley Borough and Croydon as a midfielder, winning the FA Women’s Cup twice and the Premier League once. She also gained 66 caps for the English national team. Growing up in England in the 1960s and 1970s she would have faced discrimination not only due to her being a female footballer, but also being of mixed heritage, with family links to Jamaica. Apparently, during an England international match in Europe she was spat at by a child in the stands due to her ethnicity. Add to this she had been brought up around domestic violence, as well as being open about being a part of the LGBTQ+ community, Powell would have had to have developed a strong personality.
Upon retirement Hope was offered the England job. She took it and spent the next 15 years in this position. Here she oversaw huge leaps forward in the women’s game in the country. Under her guise the team qualified for several international tournaments, with an element of success, getting to two World Cup quarter finals (2001 and 2011) and the grande finale of the European Championships in 2009. In addition to coaching the elite level of the game, she fought for greater development programmes for talented girls and young women in football. This created greater opportunities for female players to play within a more professional pathway, in her home country. Having achieved a degree in Sports Science from Brunel University she came at her job with an educated eye. A role model in several ways, Powell was the first woman to achieve the UEFA Pro Licence qualification, as well as the first openly LGBTQ+ person and woman of Afro-Caribbean descent to coach the England team. She has broken several glass ceilings leading the way for others to follow.
Other roles have included coaching the Great Britain team at the London Olympics in 2012, as well as Brighton and Hove Albion in the Women’s Super League between 2017 and 2022. After taking a year out from the game, Hope Powell became a technical director at Birmingham City. Her greatest success in terms of trophies came whist managing England leading the national team to victories in the Cyprus Cup in 2009 and 2013. Powell also holds both an OBE and a CBE.
Pia Sundhage (USWNT, Sweden Women & Brazil Women)
One of the most experienced and well travelled coaches in world football (male or female), her coaching career has taken her to six countries across four continents, including roles in both North and South America, Europe and Asia. As a player Sundhage also played for several clubs including Lazio, winning several titles with her Swedish club Jitex BK and having a very successful period with the Sweden national team. In her time playing international football she earned 146 caps between 1975 and 1996, coming third at the 1991 World Cup winning the 1984 UEFA Women’s Championships, as well as several Nordic Football Championships.
In 1990 Pia moved to Stockholm based club Hammarby IF DFF. In 1992 she was hired as player-manager, moving into her first coaching role at the age of 32 (she was born in February 1960). After retiring from playing in 1996, she then took on several assistant coaching positions in Scandinavia, before moving to the United States to help out with the Philadelphia Charge in 2001. Her first experience in international coaching with an assistants role with the Chinese national team in 2007 during the 2007 World Cup. After this she moved back to the United States to take on the top job with the USWNT. This led to a great amount of success, helping the Americans to cement themselves as the top team in women’s football. In the five years between 2007 and 2012, Sundhage led her charges to several titles including three Algarve Cups, two Four Nation Tournaments, two Olympic gold medals and the runners-up spot in the 2011 World Cup. However home beckoned, missing her native Scandinavia, she returned to Sweden to take up the head coaching position, where her side took the silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
In 2019 Sundhage decided to move abroad yet again. This time she took on the Brazilian Seleção Feminina, with the opportunity to coach Marta, one of the great players of her generation. Whilst here Brazil won their continental championships, the Copa América Femenina. More recently Pia has been heading up the Swiss national team. We await with bated breath to see what she can achieve here, having done so much in her illustrious career. On an individual basis she has been awarded the 2003 WUSA Coach of the Year, as well as the FIFA World Women’s Coach of the Year in 2012.
Tina Theune (Germany Women)
Born in 1953, in the German town of Kleve in the Lower Rhine region, she grew up in a sporting family. Her father was a track and field athlete and her mother was a handball player. A one club player her entire career, Theune acted as a midfielder for Grün-Weiß Brauweiler between 1974 and 1986, whom she later acted as a player-manager. After leaving here she went to become an assistant coach to Gero Bisanz with the German women’s team. He stepped down after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, at which point Theune stepped up to the top job.
Here she oversaw two Olympic bronze medals (2000 and 2004), three UEFA Women’s Championships on the bounce (1997, 2001 and 2005), as well as the 2003 FIFA World Cup, making the German’s the most dominant national team of the era. Another trailblazer, in 1985 Tina was the first woman to gain Germany’s elite coaching qualification, which was the equivalent of the modern UEFA Pro Licence. Having retied in 2005 she was succeeded her assistant and fellow member of this list Silvia Neid. Both women are amongst one of the most successful coaches of the German national team of all time.
Honorary man
Alfred Frankland (Dick, Kerr Ladies & Preston Ladies)
In this celebration of iconic women’s football coaches, you may wonder how this man crept into the list. However, Alfred Franklin was a very early ally in the movement towards equality. Born in Blackpool in 1882, he latterly found himself in Preston in his adult life. Whilst working in the offices of the Dick, Kerr factory in the first half of the 20th century they were awarded contracts to help produce munitions for the British effort in the First World War. This company were one of many who hired women whilst men went off to fight.
During the breaks Frankland noticed that the female workers were playing games of football in the industrial courtyards. He helped to gain support from the board of directors to put together a works team, of which he became the coach. In 1917 he started arranging charity matches and helped to push women’s football forward during a time of epic misogyny, when many of the players weren’t even allowed to vote. Alfred took great pride in the team, taking training sessions and recruiting the top players from around the country (including the great Lily Parr), reimbursing them for time spent away from work – a relatively new concept at the time and unheard of for women. In 1921 the English Football Association banned all League clubs from hosting these fixtures forcing Dick, Kerr Ladies FC and others underground. However, carry on they did, even going on international tours.
In 1926 Alfred Frankland fell out with the factory bosses, and the team became known as Preston Ladies, where he continued to coach the side. Thousands of spectators would come to watch these women play, even attracting more fans than the men’s teams of the era. In a time when females of all ages were expected to behave in a more conservative way and their options were limited the several incarnations of this football team were true trailblazers breaking down the barriers that were put in front of them. If the FA had supported them instead of put in place hurdles, then women’s football could have become massive. Frankland was one of the earliest and strongest allies of female elite level participation.
