When Eva Olid arrived at Hearts in 2021, the team had just finished bottom.
They were spared relegation after the league was expanded amid the pandemic. Hearts were still an amateur side and some of their players arrived at training after studying or working.
Five years later, Olid left as a champion.
Hearts won the first Scottish league title in their history in May 2026. They broke the dominance of the Glasgow clubs and established their coach as one of the most promising Spaniards working abroad.
Several British media outlets are now linking Olid with Manchester United. The club are searching for a replacement for Marc Skinner and talks with her are reportedly at an advanced stage, although the appointment has not yet been officially announced.
A move to the Women’s Super League would be the next major step in a career built away from the biggest stages.
From playing in Sabadell to coaching at 26
Eva Olid was born in Sabadell in 1985 and began playing football with boys when she was seven. At ten, she joined a girls’ team in her home city.
Her playing career did not reach the elite level. She eventually had to choose between continuing to play without being paid and focusing on her studies to become a teacher.
She chose to study but did not leave football.
Olid began coaching at 26 with Sant Quirze, who competed in the third tier of Spanish women’s football. She then moved into the boys’ academy at Sant Cugat, where she focused particularly on technique, awareness and decision-making.
Olid later returned to Sabadell. She coached several teams, worked with the women’s first team and eventually became head of the entire women’s section.
She also coached a team of footballers with disabilities.
Houston Dynamo gave her a first professional contract
Olid’s first opportunity to work exclusively as a coach came from the United States.
A friend told her about an American team searching for a female coach in Catalonia to work with them during a tournament. Olid accepted and impressed Houston Dynamo sufficiently to earn her first professional contract.
She moved to Louisiana to join the club’s academy. She worked with the men’s under-19 team and within the women’s programme.
The pandemic interrupted that period. Olid returned to Spain and joined the Catalan Football Federation, where she worked on methodology and coordinated its representative teams.
Her contact with Fran Alonso, then Celtic manager, eventually opened the door to Scotland. Alonso told her that Hearts were looking for a coach and Olid submitted an application.
The club asked her to deliver a presentation about her methodology and playing model.
She got the job.
Hearts had to start with the basics
Olid found a young team in Edinburgh whose working conditions remained far behind those of their main rivals.
Hearts had finished bottom the previous season. The initial objective was simply to avoid relegation.
The coach increased the number of training sessions and began with concepts that many of her players had not been taught during their development: body orientation, scanning before receiving, building from the back and making decisions under pressure.
The team stayed up in her first season.
Olid then requested a small increase in the budget to bring in several players on professional contracts. Hearts went from fighting for survival to finishing fourth, behind only Glasgow City, Celtic and Rangers.
They finished fourth again the following season and reached the first Scottish Cup final in the club’s history in 2024. Hearts lost 2-0 to Rangers but had begun competing with teams operating on significantly larger budgets.
Hearts’ first league title
The transformation was completed during the 2025/26 season.
Hearts entered the final round top of the table and with the title in their own hands. They lost 2-0 to Hibernian, but Rangers’ 6-0 defeat against Glasgow City allowed them to retain first place.
Olid finished two points ahead of Rangers and made Hearts Scottish champions for the first time.
The title also qualified the club for the Women’s Champions League qualifying rounds.
The coach had already announced in April that she would leave at the end of the season. She wanted the project to increase its investment so that Hearts could compete in Europe, but the club were unwilling to commit to that level of growth.
Olid chose to leave after achieving the greatest success in the club’s history.
Possession, pressing and player development
Olid’s teams look to build from the goalkeeper and invite opposition pressure before playing through the first line.
She places particular importance on body positioning, third-player combinations and keeping short distances between teammates so they can press immediately after losing possession.
During her final period at Hearts, she used systems with three centre-backs, advanced wing-backs and attacking midfielders capable of receiving between the lines.
That model and her ability to develop young players help explain the interest she has attracted in England.
Manchester United intend to place greater emphasis on their academy and avoid competing in every major deal in the transfer market. According to The Telegraph and The Guardian, the club believe Olid fits that new project and are preparing to appoint her.
For now, she remains without a club.
She is also the coach who inherited the bottom team in Scotland’s top flight and left them as champions.
