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When Steph Houghton, the long-time England captain, announced her retirement earlier this year, the praise from Emma Hayes could not have been higher. “I hope she stays in the game,” the then-Chelsea boss, and now head coach of the U.S. women’s national team, said. “I don’t wish coaching on anyone, but if she wants to do it, I think she would be a great asset to someone.”It's an attitude that the Football Association (FA), in collaboration with UEFA and the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), also holds towards not only the Lionesses icon, but players across the Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship, with Houghton one of 17 current and former stars from the two divisions partaking in a 12-month programme that brings them onto an all-female UEFA A Licence coaching course. Tailoring it to fit around the players' schedules, the aim is part of a collective commitment from the FA, PFA and UEFA to increase coaching opportunities for women, with Vivianne Miedema and Beth Mead also among those taking advantage.At a time when the lack of female representation in football coaching is coming under more and more scrutiny, and women make up just nine of the managers in the top two tiers of English women’s football, the hope is that some of these participants will follow up top-level playing careers with similar success in the dugout and help address an issue that needs attention.<script type="application/json" data-placement="fcplayer-semantic">{"type":"fcplayer-semantic","data":{"embedCode":"//cdn.fcp.codes/embed-code-template/embed-code-template.js#SEMANTIC_5704afb8-c10b-4ba5-9cb4-d7fb6098ef90"}}</script>

Where's the next Emma Hayes coming from? Inside the FA's bid to produce more top female coaches and address lack of representation as WSL stars past and present eye success in the dugout

As GOAL enters the Etihad Campus in Manchester to get a taste of what the course entails, stars of the WSL past and present populate one of the many rooms on site, sheltering from the bitterly cold December weather while putting the final touches on the sessions they are going to lead to a group of Man City’s Under-16s later on.Among those buzzing around are Houghton, Izzy Christiansen and Karen Bardsley, all retired England stars who enjoyed their best years at club level at City; Sandy MacIver, <a href="https://www.goal.com/en/lists/sandy-maciver-switches-allegiance-scotland-england-man-city-goalkeeper-pedro-martinez-losa-nations-league-squad/bltf813610d76295377" target="_blank">City’s one-time Lioness who now represents Scotland</a>; Aoife Mannion, the Manchester United and Ireland defender; and Lisa Evans, another Scotland star who has played for Bayern Munich and Arsenal, and is now back at her first club, Glasgow City.Also present is the FA’s Senior Professional Game Player to Coach lead, Steve Guinan, whose job is to help players, male or female, make the transition into coaching. “They've been footballers, they've got a wealth of knowledge, and we're trying to encourage them to stay in the game,” he tells GOAL. It’s a role that, after enjoying a 20-year playing career across England's top five divisions, he has held for five years now and, recently, Guinan has been encouraged by the growth of the women’s game and what that means for the career opportunities within it.“With people like this that have played in European Championships and World Cups, we don't really want to lose them to the media because we want to help them to help the next generation of players,” he adds. “The girls thrive off their every word. They are just like sponges. Whether you're under 16, or whether you're a first-team player, these are teaching them effectively. You learn a lot from playing in the top level games, so why wouldn't you try and embrace that and keep them in the game?”

Plenty of interest

Of course, having the ability to play at the highest level doesn’t automatically make someone a top coach, even if it gives them “a little bit of an advantage”, as Guinan puts it. As GOAL quizzes Evans and Mannion on their time on the course so far, despite their wealth of experience, both describe it as eye-opening for a variety of reasons.“Probably the level of detail that goes into planning and how much thought can go into a session, and then trying to deliver it to get the outcomes that you said you’d like to get,” Mannion says, explaining what has surprised her so far. Evans concurs and also notes the need to understand positions one might not have played before, while the exposure to different styles of play and a more zoomed-out view of the whole game are both things that the pair touch upon.Some of these WSL stars, past and present, already look entirely at home in the coaching environment, unfazed by the near-freezing temperatures as they boom out instructions to an U16s group who must surely feel a little starstruck, especially when the likes of Houghton get involved to make up the numbers in some drills. Christiansen, the former England midfielder who called time on her career last year, looks particularly settled as she kicks off the evening’s session.

Eye-opening

Some, though, may choose to take another post-playing career path entirely. As Evans talks to GOAL about how the course is making her think about her philosophy, she changes course through one sentence to explain that she is still pondering just what she wants to do once she has hung up the boots. “I might not even go into coaching,” she says. “It's kind of sussing out what I really enjoy and what element I really want to home in on. I know I want to be part of football in some way, but I think I'm still trying to find the part of the game that I really love.”And that’s fine. That is what the flexibility of this course allows players to do, to try something out around their existing commitments and figure out if they do foresee a future in the dugout, or if it’s something else that appeals. If nothing else, it also aids them as players.“It's helping me see more on the pitch,” Mannion says to that point. “I think people would be surprised at how little we see as a player and how, when you watch from the side as a fan or as a coach, you see so much. When you look on the pitch as a player, it’s all about little relationships or little bits of information, but as a coach, you get that bigger view and probably that has opened my eyes a little bit.”

Benefits as a player

But the overriding hope is that some of these 17 players do continue down the coaching path, that they go on to take their UEFA Pro Licence and, further down the line, get an opportunity in the game. Encouraging for Guinan and the FA is that the appetite to follow in the footsteps of this group is growing, with more and more players becoming aware that this flexible course is being offered. That may certainly help in the long-term when it comes to addressing the lack of women in coaching.“It's not easily solved,” Guinan admits, asked about that issue. “I think male or female, I think there's a lack of English Premier League head coaches. There's definitely a lack of English women coaches in the WSL. I think one of the things we are trying to do is just educate the players that this opportunity and offer is there. We’re going into clubs to talk to them regularly to say, 'Were you aware this opportunity was here?'“It's now pretty much regionalised around the country. There are a couple of get togethers at St George's Park [in Burton], but to try and make it easier for them, we'll come work with them in their own environment. It’s about what's best for the clients, for the customers, for these players. We want to keep them, so if we were asking them to travel down to London once every four weeks, it's probably not going to happen. The London people would probably appreciate it, but the north west? No chance. So we do this work all over the country.“I know there's been a couple of people say, 'I didn't know this existed. How did you get on this? Who do we contact?' Hopefully, over the next two or three years, we may see an increase in that, but ultimately, longer term, in five to 10 years, hopefully one of these, or someone else in the country, will start to get a role in a head coach position.”From the perspective of a player, Mannion adds: “It massively will increase the coaching pool, because it will make it much more achievable for players to become coaches, because there's such good opportunities now for people to go through the coaching pathway while they're still a player. That probably wasn't the case 10 years ago.”

Addressing an issue

As Houghton herself ponders what this opportunity could do for increasing the number of female coaches in football, expressing her hope that the path for women coaches into the WSL widens while also noting the importance of a coach being “good enough” regardless of gender, GOAL reminds her of Hayes’ comments upon the day of her retirement and what one of the greatest managers in the women’s game thinks of her potential in this field.“For someone like Emma Hayes to say something like that, in terms of what she's achieved in the game, and I absolutely love her winning mentality, she's obviously seen something in me that probably hopefully a lot of more people have seen,” the England icon says. “I'm just going to kind of just go with the flow in terms of seeing how this course goes and if it happens, it happens. I just want to be as prepared as possible, so if an opportunity does come there, I'm ready.”From Houghton to Miedema, Bardsley to Evans, Christiansen to Mead, those taking up this opportunity have seen a lot in the game. They’ve won major titles at club and international level, they’ve played for teams of the very highest quality and seen what it takes to be successful. Football will only be better off if they choose to share their pearls of wisdom with the generations set to succeed them.

The next step

Where's the next Emma Hayes coming from? Inside the FA's bid to produce more top female coaches and address lack of representation as WSL stars past and present eye success in the dugout | Goal.com

Only nine coaches in the Women&apos;s Super League and Women&apos;s Championship are women, but the FA is appealing to the likes of Steph Houghton and Beth Mead in a bid to change that and find the next Emma Hayes

Where&apos;s the next Emma Hayes coming from? Inside the FA&apos;s bid to produce more top female coaches and address lack of representation as WSL stars past and present eye success in the dugout