(Shaina Benhiyoun/SPP)

Bev Yanez sat in a chair in one of Racing Louisville’s offices with a bemused smile, her posture set with excitement.

“People strive their entire lives to say that they’ve done it once, right?” she said. “Something that they really love and that they’ve really been passionate about. And I now get to say that for two things.”

Yanez is, of course, talking about her love of both playing and coaching soccer. For almost a decade, Yanez had a successful professional playing career as an attacker that took her around the world to places like Norway and Japan, before settling for the majority of her career in the National Women’s Soccer League with the Seattle Reign. The whole time she was playing, Yanez was fostering a love of coaching as well, and from the time she was only 23 years old, she says her dream was to someday become the head coach of a professional club.

On Thursday, that dream came true when Racing Louisville announced that Yanez would be the club’s new head coach. She had spent the previous year as an assistant in Louisville and is replacing the previous coach, Kim Björkegren, who vacated the position at the end of last season after a two-year stint.

“We could not be more excited for Bev to lead Racing Louisville into the future,” Racing Louisville general manager Ryan Dell said. “During her time in Louisville this past season and throughout the interview process, we have seen how dedicated, tactically sound, and innovative she is. Bev’s commitment to development and her NWSL experience stood out in the search process, and in every conversation we had about her role, her immense potential was clear. She can be a championship-winning coach at Racing Louisville, and she embodies what we want in a head coach both on and off the pitch.”

Yanez sat down with The Equalizer to discuss her new role, where she sees Louisville heading, and what it means to see more former players becoming head coaches.

(Tom Phillips/SPP)

Emma Hayes has arrived. Behind the scenes, anyway.

Hayes met United States women’s national team players and staff in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Tuesday for the first time since being named the program’s 10th full-time head coach. Her stay will be brief (only three days) and somewhat informal (she is not actually coaching the team yet).

“Initial impressions have been really good,” U.S. forward Trinity Rodman said on Wednesday. “ I think the biggest thing with her coming in is getting to know us as players because she’s not going to be able to build a foundation or start anything with us if she doesn’t really get to know us as people, and know our characteristics on and off the field. So, I think that’s one of the biggest things that she’s tried to communicate with us going into camp.”

Photo: Sipa USA-USA TODAY Sports

A survey of 2023 Women’s World Cup players, conducted by world players’ union FIFPRO, underscored the growing conflict between international duties and professional leagues in women’s soccer. The problem was particularly pervasive due to the timing of this year’s World Cup, which started and ended approximately one month later than previous editions due to it being staged in Australia and New Zealand during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.

Fifty-three percent of players surveyed felt they did not have enough rest time before their first World Cup match, FIFPRO said, while 60% felt their post-tournament rest was insufficient, with most players reporting that they had less than two weeks off before rejoining their clubs.

It is a predictable aftermath for a problem that brewed ahead of the World Cup. The National Women’s Soccer League and U.S. Soccer clashed last winter over whether players would be released outside of mandatory FIFA dates and quietly came to an agreement ahead of the World Cup. Months later, the problem played out publicly in Europe, with the European Clubs Association initially taking a stand against releasing players to their national teams — most of which planned for and eventually executed weeks-long training camps ahead of the World Cup — outside of required dates. Individual decisions were ultimately left with clubs as part of a compromise.

Sarah Gregorius, FIFPRO’s director of policy and strategic relations for women’s football, called the conversations “polarizing” in a roundtable with reporters earlier this week.