Emma Hayes has become this World Cup’s must-watch pundit

“You can see already Haiti are playing with a back five, and that in itself makes it a bigger challenge for Brazil. The fact they have set out in a single pivot in a three-midfield has been really good decision-making from Ancelotti.”

We’re into another pointless hydration break at the World Cup, but one pundit is filling the time on UK broadcaster ITV with some genuinely interesting analysis.

“What he has been able to do with Danilo is every time balls have come inside to (Bruno) Guimaraes, (he) has taken the Haitian left centre-back out of position.”

Cue clip.

“See Guimaraes’ starting position? Dragging the centre-back out, not even to get on the first pass, then Danilo looking to come into the underlap.”

Let’s be perfectly honest, if this was Wayne Rooney’s analysis of Brazil versus Haiti, everyone would be raving about how far he’s come as a pundit. If this were a Spanish guy called Pep, we’d be using it as evidence for why he’s one of the best managers around.

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But because it was Emma Hayes — the head coach of the U.S. women’s national team (USWNT) — the reaction is… well, let’s just say that if you search for clips of Hayes’ analysis on ITV’s social media channels, you don’t have to scroll down far to find the misogynists out in full force.

One of the less aggressive critics observes that she is simply “saying stuff that any football fan with the most basic knowledge knows”, which is an odd way to describe one of the most successful women’s coaches of modern times, with more than a dozen major honours plus an Olympic gold medal to her name.

The backlash has been depressingly predictable, as have the memes of Hayes standing with an ironing board or making a cup of tea (yes, ITV’s studio does look like a kitchen, which wasn’t exactly very well thought through, but that’s not the point).

That said, seeing Neanderthal misogynists go nuts online is also part of the fun, because any right-minded human being who you or I would wish to converse with (we trust you, Athletic reader) can, at a basic level, see Hayes’ delivery is authoritative and engaging, while football fans can surely appreciate her insightful analysis.

This is not the first time Hayes has been on UK screens for a major men’s tournament — then then Chelsea Women manager was part of ITV’s coverage of the European Championship five years ago, too — but she feels like the standout pundit.

She has certainly achieved the impossible by making viewers tolerate hydration breaks.

While U.S. viewers on Fox have to put up with adverts (sorry, commercials) and the BBC has tended to ask their commentators to talk over replays, advertise upcoming matches or cut to studio audio to hear a bit of generic chat from a pundit, ITV has given Hayes carte blanche to tell us where she thinks a team is going wrong or right (one of the many reasons the channel is currently outshining the BBC at this tournament).

She does so via a blank diagram of a pitch and some coloured magnetic counters (the chalk and blackboard from earlier in the tournament have rightly been ditched), which is ideal in its simplicity. Perhaps ITV just blew their budget on hiring Gary Neville and constructing a studio with a stunning Manhattan skyline background, but the lack of complicated graphics is actually refreshing. No expected goals (xG), no field tilt, just 22 players and their movements.

Football can still be a simple game.

UK readers watch here:

Emma Hayes’ Hydration Break Analysis pic.twitter.com/QHHJPOBCbQ

— ITV Football (@itvfootball) June 20, 2026

Hayes talks for a couple of minutes straight, with no prompting or questions to tee her up or guide her. She talks through her analysis, sets up clips and offers an intro and outro. She does so absolutely seamlessly, live, and with millions watching back home, having had hardly any time to prepare.

Anyone in the industry will tell you how difficult this is. Ask the majority of pundits to try it, and you’d likely get a stop-start, stuttering mess with clunky pauses and lots of ‘erms’.

To that end, you can see part of what makes Hayes such a successful football manager, via her communication skills but also in making a complicated tactical breakdown appear pretty simple. Her USWNT half-time team talks must be inspiring; blunt, simple, engaging.

“It felt like she was infuriated by what she was seeing tactically, so much so that she needed to express it via the medium of drawing, as much as communicating it verbally on air,” commentator Vicki Sparks once told The Athletic about Hayes’ work as a co-commentator (Hayes was named 2021 Broadcast Sport Awards Pundit of the Year for her co-commentary work at the Euros that year).

“She can’t step away from that tactical brain. She becomes so involved, she’s not a passive observer.”

This is what we want from our pundits.

People rightly moan when they show blatant club bias (a trait now dismally being actively encouraged by the big broadcasters, such as with Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville during Liverpool versus Manchester United matches, which effectively has regressed to Sky Sports’ old FanZone coverage) or when they are horribly lacking in knowledge (a couple of seasons ago, Paul Scholes, when working on a Fenerbahce versus Manchester United game, admitted he didn’t watch Turkish football and therefore had nothing to say about a Fenerbahce player).

Watch pretty much any Champions League match on UK digital broadcaster TNT Sports that doesn’t involve an English team and, in the studio at least, you’ll see ex-footballers having done the minimum amount of research. If an English club are involved, expect pretty much everyone involved to talk exclusively in favour of them over the opponents.

Football coverage in the UK has some exceptional people working within it and can produce exceptional content, but the majority of it, either on television or online, and certainly on one sport-based radio station, is filled with cliche-ridden bilge and/or sensationalist nonsense.

Hayes also isn’t, in the manner of someone like Roy Keane, playing a role. You get the impression, made clear in this profile of her co-commentary work, that this is just her. The lack of filter extends to how she marked Father’s Day on air yesterday, with a heartfelt tribute to her own late dad and then turning around to reveal the message ‘She will change the world’ on the back of her combat jacket. You can’t imagine Theo Walcott doing that.

Fundamentally, though, Hayes is just an exceptional football brain and an outstanding broadcaster. Her work (not just during hydration breaks, but before and after games, too) brings complicated subjects to a base level, like when she broke down England’s double press during the Croatia game.

In fact, the only criticism you can possibly level is that she’s too insightful. Her analysis goes completely over the heads of people who either can’t or don’t want to understand football tactics, and certainly not when it’s being explained to them by a woman.

The noise that surrounds her is a little tiresome. Ignore all that and it’s hard to argue that Hayes is the best pundit on UK television at this World Cup.

More, please.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

US Women’s national team, Soccer, International Football, Women’s Soccer, Culture, FIFA Men’s World Cup

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