After winning a raft of trophies during her time as Chelsea boss in the Women’s Super League, Emma Hayes celebrates the USA’s gold in Paris [Emma Hayes]

MORE than 23 years since telling this newspaper she was “really going to go for it big time” after landing a job as a football coach in New York, Camden-born Emma Hayes has experienced the biggest of times yet.

On Saturday, a mere 10 games into her role as head coach of the USA women’s national team, the 47-year-old steered a side that included Arsenal’s Emily Fox to Olympic gold with a tight 1-0 win over Brazil in Paris.

It was a special moment for Hayes, who has won plaudits as a club coach both across the pond and at home in the past two decades, but has quickly found her feet on the international stage.

“I’m just on cloud nine,” she told the New Journal. “I’m rarely speechless, but I was after the game. I was so emotional.”

Much of that emotion was fuelled by the presence in the Parc des Princes of her mum Miriam, and the memory of her late father Sid, whose American eagle necklace Hayes held on to during the showpiece final.

“It was such a comfort, especially the last 10 minutes of the game, I held on to it for dear life,” she said. “I rubbed it for 10 minutes, I was chatting to him the whole time and it was so helpful. [Afterwards] Mum just cried, she just said: ‘Your dad would be so proud’.”

Hayes added: “To win with America is so special for me. I’ve always felt a little bit of an outsider and I always felt embraced in that place, so to finally give back to America in the way they gave to me was the greatest feeling.”

USA-bound Hayes in the New Journal in 2001

Hayes, who grew up on the Curnock Street Estate in Camden Town, took her first coaching badge as a 15-year-old Parliament Hill School pupil and spent her summers running sports sessions for kids at Coram’s Fields in King’s Cross.

She was working in football development in Somers Town and the Bourne Estate when she left everything behind to take up her first job in America in 2001.

But while she appreciates what those spells spent working with clubs and players stateside did for her, the former Chelsea boss also acknowledges those early days coaching in Camden too.

“You learn how to build relationships with people, the value of community, and altruism, giving back,” she said. “I’m not privileged. I come from the ‘yellow flats’ – I wasn’t given anything in life that gave me a head start in any shape or form and I was always taught the value of community – that’s in me and I’m grateful for every experience I’ve ever had, including all my community work.”

Ironically, Hayes was offered the USA job at a meeting in the Standard Hotel on Argyle Street, the site of the old Camden Town Hall extension where she drew her first wages as a play leader with Camden Council.

“I sat down and thought, I can’t believe this – I’m in the same place I got my first pay packet!” she said.

Now one of the women’s game’s top earners will turn her attention to the World Cup in 2027 and her players can hardly wait.

“Emma’s been in with us for two months,” said USA captain Lindsey Horan on Saturday. “Imagine what we can do now in the next two-and-a-half years before the World Cup.

“To go out and win the way we just won in a major tournament against the best opponents in the world – so much credit to Emma and the staff because we felt the trust, the confidence from them and that’s what made this happen.”