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Emma Hayes wins World award

Emma Hayes was named as the Best FIFA Women’s Coach at the FIFA Awards 2021 ceremony in Zurich on Monday night.

In 2021, Hayes continued to add to her outstanding record as Chelsea Women manager by taking the team to new heights by winning every domestic trophy going in the year – the Women’s Super League, the FA Cup and the Continental Cup - and for the first time in the club’s history a Chelsea side reached the Women’s Champions League final. In the WSL they achieved a record-breaking 32-game unbeaten streak.

On a personal level, she was awarded an OBE for her services to football in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours.

Hayes was named WSL Manager of the Season for 2020-21 and was inducted into the FA WSL Hall of Fame. During the summer she also earned acclaim for her expert analysis as a television pundit during the Euro 2020 tournament.

On her latest accolade, her Best FIFA Award, she told the Chelsea FC website: “I'm completely shocked. I put it down to the players, the fantastic people that represent my work. Ultimately the coach is only as good as the people they have around them and I've got brilliant, brilliant people at Chelsea that have helped to support the team to the place we are at.”

She beat Lluis Cortes (Spain and FC Barcelona) and Sarina Wiegman (Netherlands, Dutch national team and English national team) to the FIFA award. To complete a remarkable night for the club, the men’s award was won by Thomas Tuchel.

Chelsea striker Sam Kerr was one of the three nominations for the Best Women's Player Award but came second in the voting to Barcelona's Alexia Putellas.

The Best FIFA Awards are given to the outstanding players in women’s and men’s football as voted for by an international jury respectively comprising the current coaches of all women’s/men’s national teams (one per team), the current captains of all women’s/men’s national teams (one per team), one specialist journalist from each territory represented by a national team and fans registered on FIFA.com.

Four Barclays FA WSL players - Chelsea captain Magdalena Eriksson and vice captain Millie Bright, plus Manchester City full back Lucy Bronze and Arsenal striker Vivianne Miedema - have made the FIFA FIFPRO Women’s World eleven.

Speaking about her inclusion in the XI, Bronze said: “I’m so pleased to be in this team once again. I think the best awards are the ones that are voted for by the players that you play against and especially the ones around the world.

“Playing in your own league and in your own country, sometimes you can be a bit blindsided by the rest of the world but when you have to vote for those across other leagues, and all those people think the same thing, it reiterates the feeling that you know you’re on the right path.

“I really love being in the World XI more than anything because it’s amazing to have that recognition of being the best right back in the world.

“I know I’ve been named the world’s best player before, but there’s something about my own position that I’m really precious about and I always want to be the best in my role.

“It’s amazing to get that recognition and especially being in a World XI’s back four for the past few years, I absolutely love standing by the side of the other players and just thinking ‘what a team this would be’.”

2021 FIFA FIFPRO Women’s World XI: Christiane Endler, Lucy Bronze, Millie Bright, Magdalena Eriksson, Wendie Renard, Estefania Banini, Barbara Bonansea, Carli Lloyd, Marta, Vivianne Miedema, Alex Morgan.