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On Wednesday, Bay Collective announced the recruitment of Anja van Ginhoven, England's managerial lead working with head coach Sarina Wiegman, as their global women's football operations director. This new multi-club ownership body, with the San Francisco-based Bay FC as its first club among its holdings, has prior experience in hiring individuals from the English FA.

The hiring in recent months of Kay Cossington, the well-respected previous technical director at the Football Association, to the CEO role served as a signal of intent by the collective. Cossington is deeply familiar with women’s football thoroughly and now has gathered a leadership team with profound insight of women’s football history and laden with experience.

She is the third central staffer of Wiegman's coaching team to exit this year, with Cossington leaving prior to the European Championships and assistant coach, Veurink, stepping down to assume the position of head coach of the Netherlands, but her move arrived more quickly.

Leaving has been a surprising shift, but “I’d taken my decision to depart the Football Association well in advance”, she says. “I had a contract for four years, exactly like Arjan and Sarina had. As they re-signed, I had expressed I wasn't sure about renewing myself. I had grown accustomed to the whole idea that post-Euros I would no longer be involved with the national team.”

The European Championship became an emotional competition as a result. “I remember very clearly, vividly, discussing with Wiegman in which I informed her of my choice and we then remarked: ‘There’s just one dream, how incredible it would be that we win the Euros?’ Generally, it's rare that aspirations are realized every day however, absolutely incredibly, this one did.”

Sitting in an orange T-shirt, she experiences split allegiances following her stint with the English team, where she helped achieve winning back-to-back European titles and served on the coaching setup when the Netherlands won at Euro 2017.

“England will always hold a special place in my heart. So, it will be difficult, notably since that the team will be arriving for the upcoming fixtures in the near future,” she says. “Whenever the two nations face off, who do I support? Right now I'm in Dutch colors, but tomorrow I'll be in white.”

In a speedboat, you can pivot and accelerate swiftly. In a lean group like this one, that is simple to achieve.

The club was not in the plans when the strategic expert concluded that a new chapter was needed, but the pieces fell into place at the right time. Cossington initiated the recruitment and mutual beliefs were crucial.

“Essentially upon meeting we connected we had that click moment,” states Van Ginhoven. “There was immediate understanding. Our conversations have been thorough about different things around how you grow the game and our shared vision for the right approach.”

The two leaders are not the only figures to make a move from well-known positions in the European game for a fresh start in the US. Atlético Madrid’s technical director for women's football, González, has been introduced as the organization's new global sporting director.

“I felt strongly drawn by the firm conviction of the power of women's football,” she says. “I have known Kay Cossington for an extended period; back when I was with Fifa, she served as England's technical director, and it’s easy to make these decisions when you know you are going to be surrounded by people who really inspire you.”

The profound understanding in their team distinguishes them, explains Van Ginhoven, as Bay Collective part of a group recent multi-team projects which have emerged over the past few years. “This is a key differentiator for us. Various methods are valid, however we strongly feel in ensuring deep football understanding,” she states. “The entire leadership have traveled a path in female football, probably for the best part of our lives.”

As outlined on their site, the mission of Bay Collective is to advocate and innovate a progressive and sustainable ecosystem for women's football clubs, founded on effective practices addressing the different demands of female athletes. Achieving this, with collective agreement, without having to justify actions for why you would take certain actions, is hugely liberating.

“I liken it to moving from a large ship to a fast boat,” says Van Ginhoven. “You are essentially navigating in uncharted waters – that’s a Dutch saying, not sure how it comes across – and you must depend on your own knowledge and expertise to make the right decision. You can pivot and accelerate rapidly in a speedboat. Within a compact team such as ours, that is simple to achieve.”

González notes: “In this role, we have a completely white sheet of paper to work from. Personally, our mission involves shaping the sport more extensively and that clean start permits you to undertake any direction you choose, within the rules of the game. That is the advantage of our collective project.”

The aspirations are significant, the management are saying the things the football community are eager to hear and it will be fascinating to monitor the progress of the collective, the team and any clubs added to the portfolio.

To get a sense of future plans, what factors are essential in a high-performance setting? “{It all starts and ends with|Everything begins and concludes with|The foundation and culmination involve