This week, for the first time in what seemed like ages, Nick Cushing and Emma Hayes met without a league title on the line.
Hayes, the coach of the , stayed in Denver all week following her team’s visit to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park for a 3-0 win over Japan last Friday night. Somewhere between trips to Vail, Breckenridge and Red Rocks, she found time to catch up with Cushing, coach of Denver Summit FC and a longtime competitor, rival and friend.
”He is probably the coach I’ve enjoyed coaching against the most, more than anybody else. I loved our battles,” Hayes told media members before Summit FC’s 3-2 loss Saturday night against San Diego Wave. “…We always knew when you play Nick Cushing’s teams, you are in for a game. He’s relentless; he will not let his team come off the pedal. I think he’s an unbelievable coach and I think Denver is incredibly lucky to have him. With the right time and squad building, I think he’ll produce a fantastic team.”
In front of Hayes and a sellout crowd of 16,932 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Saturday night, Cushing’s Summit FC fell victim to a rampant comeback against the NWSL leader. But for the first 45 minutes, Denver proved Hayes’s sentiment correct.
Melissa Kössler scored Summit FC’s first-ever home goal in the 16th minute with as easy a tap-in as she’ll ever get. Natasha Flint, who recently made her loan from USL Super League club Tampa Bay Sun permanent, slotted a through ball to Yazmeen Ryan down the left channel. She dribbled almost to the byline before picking out Kössler at the back post. It was the German international’s fourth goal of the season.
Flint joined the scoring party in the 32nd minute with a header off her own miss from a tight angle on the left of the goal mouth. Receiving a wonderful through ball, she made a nice cutback before a right-footed shot was blocked off the line. It popped back to her and she finished the chance.
The Wave’s trio of goals came in just a 15-minute span between the 49th and 65th minutes. Midfielder Lia Godfrey struck first as the recipient of a good give-and-go and executor of a straightforward finish. Eight minutes later, Kennedy Wesley tied it up with a header on a corner kick — in last week’s USWNT match, she tallied her first international goal and assist, both on corners. Summit defender Carson Pickett steered in an own goal in the 65th minute while trying to clear a pass destined for a back-post tap-in.
Ryan had two good chances at a late equalizer, but put both over the bar.
Like the ones that got away from him back in Manchester, results like these are the ones Cushing said his team should look back on down the road.
“I’ve been through this before in building teams, and I said to the players, ‘Tough times make top teams, and itap how you digest this and how you react to it, individually and collectively,’” he said. “The direction you take out of a moment like this dictates the progression that you make.”
Rivals and friends
Before his tenure in Denver, Cushing’s six full seasons in England coaching Manchester City’s women’s team were spent jockeying with Hayes’s Chelsea teams for all but one of the Women’s Super League titles during that time. Hayes claimed four of them and Cushing nabbed one.
All five of those seasons featured their teams at Nos. 1 and 2, with no more than 6 points separating them at the end of the season. In the shortened 2020 season, Manchester City earned one more point than Chelsea, but Hayes’ team was awarded the title because it had played one less game and thus had more points per game. Cushing’s Manchester City teams were 4-1-8 against Hayes’s Chelsea teams.
In the women’s soccer world, itap not far off to conclude that one does not exist in their current capacity without the other. When the two were in opposite technical areas, they found an extra gear.
Cushing has no interest in using the nature of an expansion team as an excuse for now taking just six points from Summit FC’s first six games. Nor will he use the excuse that five of those opponents are currently in playoff positions.
Hayes, though, gave him the slack she seldom did back in England.
“I said to Nick yesterday, having built a franchise back in the day in (now-defunct league Women’s Professional Soccer), I know how hard it is to get off the ground running. For him to start as well as he has, he has to lean into that and know how difficult it is,” Hayes said. “I think his team has been consistent for the most part and I think the next steps for them are, they just have to gel. They’re so new. They had a preseason and four or five games, so itap going to take time.”
