What Happened in China in 2007?

Sounds like the only player on the USWNT who acquitted herself well in the L'Affaire Ryan/Solo/Scurry was Carli Lloyd, a smart Jersey girl. The Sports Illustrated article below (and Andrea Canales take, after that) lays out more of what really happened behind the scenes when Hope Solo was banned from the team after saying, hey, I would have made those saves. (She couldn't be charged with slander, because It. Was. The. Truth.)

I blame Greg Ryan, but clearly the rest of the team had a warped idea of "team". I mean, isn't the reason you stick together as a team that you want to win? I never understood them all going along with Greg Ryan's moronic bootball tactics. I guess there wasn't anyone on the team that understood that it was not the beautiful game they were playing. And they thought it was more important to be nice to each other than to win. Hey, put in the old goalie that can't kick the ball and hasn't played in a competitive game in six months. Take out the hot kid with two clean sheets under her belt. It's OK, we're a team! Dumb. I'm so disappointed in the juvenile attitudes of these athletes. Maybe with age will come wisdom.


SI.com: Hard Return
Her World Cup outburst violated the team-first ethos of women's sports and made her an outcast. Now Hope Solo is the U.S. goalie once again, bound for Beijing—and still trying to figure it all out

Sideline Views (Andrea Canales): The Feminine Mystique

P.S., Kristine Lilly is due on July 19th.

USWNT Announces Olympic Qualifying Roster & Schedule

ussoccer: U.S. WNT vs. Denmark - 03-12-08 - Algarve Cup
USSoccer announced the 20-player roster for 2008 Concacaf Olympic women's qualifying tournament yesterday. The squad includes five players who didn't play at the 2007 World Cup: Rachel Buehler (Stanford), Tobin Heath (North Carolina), Kacey White(North Carolina), Lauren Cheney(UCLA) and Amy Rodriguez (USC).

The six players from Greg Ryan's 21-player roster for the World Cup who aren't on the team are: Kristine Lilly, Tina Ellerton, Brianna Scurry, Marian Dalmy, Aly Wagner, and Marci Jobson. Lilly and Ellerton are pregnant and have not retired. Jobson has taken the job as the head women's soccer coach at Baylor. I don't think any of the others have retired, but Wagner has struggled with pace and Dalmy was very young, inexperienced and a surprise addition to the World Cup roster.

As to Brianna Scurry, I think Pia Sundhage handled the Scurry/Solo situation exactly right. She complimented both players when she got the job, invited them both to her early camps, then quietly dropped Scurry, first from the Algarve Cup roster, and now from the Olympic qualifying squad. Scurry was the greatest keeper in the world in the past, but her skills have eroded and her storied mental toughness is no longer enough to keep the ball out of the net. (See Brazil 4, USA 0)

Another omission from the squad I wonder about is Heather Mitts. I thought she would have been sufficiently rehabbed from her knee injury to compete for a spot, but it's her second major knee injury and that can take a long time to heal. This is not the final Olympic roster, either; it's the roster for qualifying, and there could be changes for the actual Olympic team.

GOALKEEPERS: Nicole Barnhart (Gilbertsville, Pa.), Hope Solo (Richland, Wash.);

DEFENDERS: Rachel Buehler (Del Mar, Calif.), Lori Chalupny (St. Louis, Mo.), Stephanie Cox (Elk Grove, Calif.), Kate Markgraf (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), Christie Rampone (Point Pleasant, N.J.), Cat Whitehill (Birmingham, Ala.);

MIDFIELDERS: Shannon Boxx (Redondo Beach, Calif.), Tobin Heath (Basking Ridge, N.J.), Angela Hucles (Virginia Beach, Va.), Carli Lloyd (Delran, N.J.), Leslie Osborne (Brookfield, Wis.), Lindsay Tarpley (Kalamazoo, Mich.), Kacey White (Arlington, Texas);

FORWARDS: Lauren Cheney (Indianapolis, Ind.), Natasha Kai (Kahuku, Hawaii), Heather O'Reilly (East Brunswick, N.J.), Amy Rodriguez (Lake Forest, Calif.), Abby Wambach (Rochester, N.Y.).

Here's the qualifying schedule:

USA Olympic Qualification Schedule – Group A
Date Match-Up Kickoff Local / Pacific Time
April 4 USA vs. Jamaica 7:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 p.m. PT
April 6 USA vs. Mexico 1:30 p.m. MT / 12:30 p.m. PT

2008 CONCACAF WOMEN’S OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION SCHEDULE
Group A
Date Match-up Kickoff (Local)
April 2 Mexico vs. Jamaica 7:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 p.m. PT
April 4 USA vs. Jamaica 7:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 p.m. PT
April 6 Mexico vs. USA 1:30 p.m. MT / 12:30 p.m. PT

Group B
Date Match-up Kickoff (Local)
April 2 Trinidad & Tobago vs. Canada 5 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. PT
April 4 Costa Rica vs. Trinidad & Tobago 5 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. PT
April 6 Canada vs. Costa Rica 11 a.m. MT / 10 a.m. PT

Semifinals Kickoff (Local)
April 9 Winner Group A vs. Runner-up Group B 5 p.m. MT / 4 p.m. PT
April 9 Winner Group B vs. Runner-up Group A 7:30 p.m. MT / 6:30 p.m. PT

Final/Third-place Game Kickoff (Local)
April 12 Third-Place Game 5 p.m. MT / 4:00 p.m. PT
April 12 Championship 7:30 p.m. MT / 6:30 p.m. PT

Greg Ryan, Talking About Practice

Dope.
Deposed USWNT coach Greg Ryan gave an interview to the Arizona Republic before Christmas, defending "the worst decision in the history of organized sports".

His pathetic excuses for taking out his hot goalkeeper Hope Solo for legendary but old and rusty Brianna Scurry:

1. Solo missed a team meal on the day of the England game. (The USA won that game 3-0 and Solo was credited with 4 saves on her clean sheet). I bet she was eating with her brother, who was in China to watch her play in tribute to their father who had died in June.

2. Even though he brings up the rule violation in the interview, he claims that's not why he didn't start her against Brazil. (Then why bring it up, other than to slime her. Jerk.)

3. Briana Scurry looked better than Solo -- in a practice. In this regard, I must quote the eternal words of Allen Iverson:

[W]e're talking about practice. We're talking about practice man. (laughter from the media crowd) We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We're not talking about the game. We're talking about practice....we're talking about practice man, we're not even talking about the game, when it actually matters, we're talking about practice.

This is what Ryan said about practice leading to his decision:

What did you see during practice that made you decide that Solo wasn't ready for Brazil?

"We played small sided games to big goals, where we were going to get a lot of chances like Brazil would get, dribbling in or around the penalty box. On that day, of the 30 or 40 shots, Hope was giving up three times the number of goals Briana was giving up.

Briana was saving them in the top corners. Hope was letting them go right through her hands, and this was two days before the Brazil game. It was so bad that I brought my assistants down to watch and said, 'Look at this.' Now looking back, correlating the late nights and whatever, maybe it makes a little bit more sense."

I talked to my sister about the bad practice excuse and she said, "People have bad practices before big games all the time. She was just getting it out of her system! What a jerk."

4. And that's his final excuse, that Solo had been keeping late nights. I call bullshit on this one. There is no way that this athlete who has dedicated the tournament to her recently deceased father decides to sabotage herself like that. Maybe she stayed out late the nights after she found out that her bonehead of a coach was taking her out of the most important game of her life (and as it turned out, his career.)

Solo also gave an interview recently to the San Diego Union-Tribune in which, as she has been after her ill-considered (but entirely truthful) post-Brazil-game interview, she is conciliatory and apologetic.

Hope Speaks

Sounds like Hope Solo is still reeling from the whole World Cup experience, which I summarize as:

Greg-Ryan-Makes-An-Idiotic-Decision, Solo-Gives-Ill-Considered-Interview-After-Goading-By-USSoccer-Press-Flack
Then-The-Team-Shuns-Her
Happy-Ending: Moron-Ryan-Fired-Pia-Sundhage-Hired

I hope she realizes how many rabid women's soccer fans support her. There is no proper way to react when your coach makes "the worst decision in the history of organized sports" and takes you out of the most important game of your career. There's no manual for that one.

She is interviewed by AP by phone: Hope Solo Talks About World Cup

[]

In her first public comments since a brutally frank TV interview in which she criticized her benching, Solo told The Associated Press she never saw it coming and wasn't prepared for it.

"I had felt as though my childhood dream basically had been ripped away from me," she said.

[]

"It is a little difficult to relive that," she said. "Mentally, I was full of all sorts of emotions. The World Cup was the only thing that kept me together after the death of my father (in June), kept me fighting and together and dedicated to the game.

"Moreso, the moment I realized we didn't have the opportunity to win the gold medal, my world came tumbling down. I had nothing to immediately give back to my father. I was wound so tight emotionally, and the moment after the loss I broke."

The worst part, Solo said, was her comments seemed directed at her teammates as well as at Ryan, who recently was replaced at coach by Pia Sundhage.

"Of course I know I have some friendships to rebuild and teammates to rebuild relationships with," she said. "But there is nothing I can go back and do.

"Never did I intend to put down a teammate, and that is the thing that hurts the most. I always have respected and will respect Bri. And that is the thing that hurts me the most."

[]

"I have reached out to her, but beyond the Mexico series we have not really spoken, which is not unusual with my teammates, because we're often not together for long (stretches)," Solo said.

"I have spoken to a handful of different teammates here and there at different levels. In the end, we are all professionals and have a common goal to qualify for the 2008 Olympics. I can only hope we put our differences aside because we have a job to do.

"It's important we respect each other on the field; we don't have to be best friends off the field."

The 25-year-old keeper from Richland, Wash., chuckled at the irony of the Olympics, for which the Americans must qualify in April, being staged in China.

"China is going to bring back a lot of memories for me, no doubt," she said. "But I've been through a lot of worse things in life."

Particularly the death of her father, Jeffrey. Would getting that gold medal in the Olympics ease the pain from the World Cup fiasco?

"My father was even more excited about this World Cup than I was," she said, her voice cracking. "Looking back, it is not just gold medals that I have to celebrate his life and give back to his passing. If I never see a gold medal in my life, I will be doing what I can to make my father proud."

Fire Him Or Else

If USSoccer doesn't fire Greg Ryan, they reveal themselves to know NOTHING about soccer. Nothing. I won't go to a USWNT game until he's gone.

WaPo: Greg Ryan Announcement Monday

USSF President Sunil Gulati and Secretary General Dan Flynn will address U.S. women's national team coach Greg Ryan's status during a media teleconference at 4 p.m. (Eastern) on Monday.

The sins of Greg Ryan:

(1) Adopting bootball tactics instead of the beautiful possession game.

(2) Blowing the 2007 World Cup by putting in rusty, over-the-hill Brianna Scurry for hot, best-goalie-in-the-world-right-now Hope Solo. Stupidest decision in the history of sports. Brianna Scurry was the best goalie in the world in 1999. Not 2007.

(3) Hired all male assistant coaches.

(4) Had the players practicing separately by position. What?

(5) Played Kristine Lilly too many minutes, in the wrong position. She's a midfielder, you dope.

(6) Losing to Brazil in a win-or-go-home game against Brazil, he made DEFENSIVE substitutions. Moron.

(7) Inability to adapt tactically, like having Cat Whitehill come from the back to take throw-ins while the US was down a man to Brazil (lead directly to the third goal in the game).

(8) Choked under pressure. Who can forget him chattering like a monkey on the sidelines during the North Korea game? I'd freak out if my coach acted like that during a game.

(9) Humiliating Hope Solo after she spoke the truth. She would have made those saves.

(10) Destroying the reputation of the greatest women's sports team in the world. Unforgivable.