More Video of USWNT Celebrations

From Martynnny, via JordanCornblog.

More Video of USWNT Celebration

From the same Swedish newspaper site, via JordanCornblog, which I am adding to the blogroll. Another blog that loves women's soccer, whoo-hoo!

Double Win For Pia

Pia rocking the black socks.

Head Coach Pia Sundhage takes the USWNT to the Olympics gold medal, and USSoccer, in a shockingly fast display of common sense, gives her a four-year contract extension, to 2012 according to Swedish news reports.

Watch Sunil Gulati drop to his knees to ask her to stay here. The clip is from a Swedish newspaper. Lots of video of the post-game celebration including Christie Rampone giving Pia her own gold medal. (Coaches don't get them.)

Congratulations to Pia, and congratulations to USSoccer for getting this right. Now, Sunil, do you have your calls in to Guus Hiddink for the men? Let's steal him from Russia while they're preoccupied with Georgia. A good international coach must be the priority for the USMNT and the 2010 World Cup

Hope is Golden and Redeemed

ussoccer
A good coach can make all the difference. A bad coach can ruin your World Cup and stomp on your dreams.

I am truth and I approve this message:

Nick Gholson, Times-Record News (TX): Made in China

They are calling the United States men’s basketball “The Redeem Team.”

Well, Hope Solo is “The Redeem Queen.”

Less than a year ago, this kid was blackballed by her U.S. teammates. They wouldn’t eat with her. They wouldn’t fly on the same airplane with her.

Her sin was telling the truth. – that her coach was an idiot.

Solo had been the U.S. team’s starting goalkeeper for the first four games of the 2007 World Cup. She was unbeaten with three straight shutouts.

So what does coach Greg Ryan do? He benches her in the semifinal game against Brazil. With 36-year-old veteran Briana Scurry minding the net, the U.S. lost 4-0.

After the game, Solo was on her way out the door when a reporter asked her what she thought of the coach’s decision. When a PR guy told the guy to only ask questions to the girls who played in the game, Solo got ticked off and gave this answer:

“It was the wrong decision and I think anybody who knows anything about the game knows that. There’s no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves,” she said “You can’t live in the past. It doesn’t matter what somebody did in a gold medal Olympic game three years ago. Now is what matters.”

Ryan benched Solo again for the third place game. Not long after that, he announced she was no longer on the team. Captain Kristine Lilly explained that it was a team decision made by the group.

And we all know the rest of the sorry story. Congratulations to Hope Solo for triumphing over the coach who made the worst decision in the history of sport.

The Golden Girls

Some videos on the USWNT's gold medal performance, with interviews with Pia, Christie, Kate, Hope, and Carli:





All stolen gleefully from Sideline Views.

For more videos and interviews, check out the team's blog: USWNT Blog

Golden!

Goal!

The USWNT won a hard-fought gold medal this morning, defeating hated Brazil 1-0 in overtime. Carli Lloyd scored the winner in the 96th minute. Christie Rampone was my MOTM; on USSoccer they selected Hope Solo, and I can live with that. She made a point blank reaction save on Marta in the 72nd minute that was amazing. Even watching the game as a spectator was exhausting. So I'm too tired to recap fully. Read these excellent recaps/liveblogs:

Boltgirl on the Loose, here, and here.

(from which I learned that after the 4-0 loss at the 2007 World Cup, the Brazilian players videotaped the US players crying in the hotel lobby. Stay classy, pretty losers. I'm going to start calling Brazil the Anna Kournikova of soccer.)


Andrea Canales at Sideline Views.

Jere Longman, NYTimes

Beau Dure, USAToady


Natasha Kai became the first Hawaiian athlete to win a gold medal. She ripped off her shirt to celebrate, showing the world her sports bra (yawn) and her tattoos (awesome).

How sweet it is!

Bonus video of the USWNTs of basketball and soccer meeting. Watch Tobin Heath make Kara Lawson look tall! See their ball skills. Watch Diana Taurasi tear it up in soccer tennis.

USSoccer Photo Gallery

Yahoo Photo Gallery

Cute soccer mom pics:

Rylie Cate, daughter of United States' Christie Rampone, jumps from the podium in joy after her mom's team won the gold over Brazil in the women's soccer final at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008.
(AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
United States' Christie Rampone, left, carries her daughter Rylie Cate and United States' Kate Markgraf carries her son Keegan on their shoulders as they are all smiles with teammate Carli Lloyd, center, during the medal ceremony for the women's soccer gold medal match at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008. The US won the gold medal by beating Brazil.
(AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

Poor, poor Brazil, the greatest team that's never won anything.

Waaaaaahhhhhhhh! (Hey, Cristiane, there's NO CRYING IN BASEBALL)

Final note, a shoutout to Greg Ryan: She would have made those saves, you moron.

Women's Soccer Olympic Draw

NBC: Abby Wambach
The USWNT, the defending gold medalists, will face Norway, Japan and New Zealand in group stage of the 2008 Olympics. This is a fairly easy draw for Team USA. Japan is always technically good, but their team is small and they have problems finishing. New Zealand qualified for the 2007 World Cup, but didn't score a goal in their three group games. Norway isn't the team of "Viking bitches" (Kristine Lilly) that won the 1995 World Cup anymore. Coach Mom & I saw them in Hartford summer 2007 and weren't very impressed. (The U.S. defeated Norway handily, 4-1, in the third place game of the World Cup.)

The group of death is definitely Group B, which besides defending World Cup champions Germany contains Brazil, with Marta the most feared offense in the world; Nigeria, who tied Sweden in the group stage of the World Cup and came within a goal of tying the U.S., always a tough, physical team; and North Korea, who tied the U.S. in the opening game of the World Cup, also a very tough, physical team.

The top seeds for the tournament are China, Germany and the U.S., which is why Brazil and Germany are in the same group. Also, according to the U.S. Soccer website, the U.S. could not have been in the same group with Brazil to open the tournament, as we are considered to be from the same region, the Americas I guess. Lucky for us, not so lucky for Germany.

2008 Women's Soccer Olympic Draw

Group A: China, Canada, Argentina, Sweden.

Group B: North Korea, Brazil, Nigeria, Germany.

Group C: Norway, Japan, U.S., New Zealand.

ussoccer: U.S. Women Drawn Into Group G at 2008 Olympics; Will Face Norway, Japan and New Zealand
- U.S. Will Play First Two Games in Qinhuangdao and Final Group Match in Shenyang
- USA's First Match of Group G Pits Last Two Olympic Champions

ussoccer: Quote Sheet: Players and Coaches Reaction To Olympic Draw

USWNT News

USA celebrates penalty shot victory over Canada, 4/12/08
SanDiego.com: Change blowin' in the wind for women's team

Besides the news that Kate Markgraf is the team co-captain (yea Kate!) this article contains this interesting outline of Pia Sundhage's challenges:

Plenty of wrenching decisions, though, lie ahead.

There is goalkeeper Hope Solo and the scars from her much-publicized banishment at the 2007 World Cup last September. Solo and her teammates have worked to mend their tattered relationship, but Solo also has admitted “there are still some people who I realize I may never be close to again.”

There is the fitness level of hefty defender Cat Whitehill, a starter in the 2003 and '07 World Cups and 2004 Olympics. Sundhage has already made a subtle statement by benching Whitehall through most of the Algarve Cup and Olympic qualification.

There is the disposition of 5-foot-11 forward Abby Wambach, who is the team's most gifted player and whose abrasive personality can (and does) rub teammates and coaches the wrong way. She was the focal point in former coach Greg Ryan's bang-it-forward system, but Sundhage's offensive diversification ultimately means fewer touches for the No. 5 scorer in U.S. history.

There is the leadership void created when Kristine Lilly, the lone remaining link to the 1991 World Cup title, took the year off to start a family.

I am not surprised that Whitehill's fitness is an issue. One of the nightmares of Greg Ryan's foolish tactics was having Whitehill come forward to take all throw-ins, when she struggled to get back into position. Hopefully Sundhage will put her on the Juande Ramos diet.

I don't know about Wambach rubbing anyone else the wrong way, but I wager that she's had a few run-ins with this reporter. Is he trying to say that Abby is crabby because she's not getting the ball as much? I bet she's happy to be winning in a system that lets the team play soccer, not bootball.

ussoccer: U.S. Women's National Team Downs Canada in Penalty Kick Shootout to Win 2008 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying

Captain Christie Rampone with CONCACAF Trophy after win over Canada, 4/12/08

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

Your New Captain: Christie Rampone

Christie Rampone was named captain of the USWNT by new coach Pia Sundhage. She is the most capped player on the squad, but I am a little surprised by this appointment. Last fall Tony DiCicco said during the World Cup that she was virtually silent during his first two years as coach. She'll lead by example, that's for sure. She was the US's best defender and arguably their best player during the 2007 World Cup.

USSoccer: Defender Christie Rampone Named Captain of the U.S. Women's National Team
Veteran Will Skipper Her First Game on Jan. 16 vs. Canada

Congratulations to Kristine Lilly

She's pregnant! She says she's not retiring, but I have to wonder about that. She will be 37 in July. And I wonder who will be the new captain of the National Team? Abby Wambach?

ussoccer: U.S. Women's National Team Legend Kristine Lilly Will Not Play in 2008
- World's All-Time Cap Leader is Expecting Her First Child

CHICAGO (January 7, 2008) – Kristine Lilly, the captain of the U.S. Women’s National Team for the last three years, will not play international soccer in 2008 as she is expecting her first child with husband David Heavey, a firefighter in Brookline, Mass.

The news means that Lilly, who has played in every Women’s World Cup and Olympics ever contested by the United States (eight total tournaments) will not play in the 2008 Olympics should the USA qualify in April. Lilly is due in July.

“I’m not closing any doors as far as soccer,” said Lilly, who has played 340 games for the USA. “I hope to play in the new league and if one day I get the chance to play for (new U.S. head coach) Pia (Sundhage), that would be fantastic. But for now, I’m focusing on becoming a mom for the first time and everything that goes with that experience.”

SoccerAmerica: U.S. captain Kristine Lilly to skip Olympics

Music to My Ears

"Sundhage is the anti-Greg Ryan -- fitness is secondary to her, and communication is at a premium."

ESPNSoccerNet: Bringing back the passion

Pia Rocks

Video from USSoccer of the first two practices under new coach Pia Sundhage, including the song she sang to start things off! The times they are a changing, for sure.

Pia Sundhage: Total Football

Johan Cruyff: 'God's gift to football'

All football fans sigh with pleasure to hear the phrase "total football". It brings to mind the legend Johan Cruyff, and his Dutch team's creative, flowing, dynamic, beautiful football.

That's what Pia Sundhage is preaching to the USWNT. Hurrah!

dailybreeze.com: Weekly soccer column: Sundhage revives the U.S. team

Not surprisingly [] Sundhage preaches a European-style "total football" approach, where Greg Ryan, her predecessor as U.S. coach, emphasized defense first .

"She's making everybody defend and everybody do the offensive side," said midfielder Shannon Boxx, the former South Torrance High star. "Greg was very much on the defensive side and Pia is very much on the offensive side."

Presumably, that will eliminate the reliance on low-percentage long balls out of the back and then hoping goal-scoring machine Abby Wambach can get on the end of them.

Finesse and tactical awareness will replace brute strength and strategic naivete.

And players will be asked to do more, rather than simply fill a niche and perform a specialized role.

hat tip to USA Women's Soccer blog.

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."

Pia Sundhage To Hold USWNT Mini-Camp

Image: ESPN
Boy, wouldn't I love to be a fly on the wall at this camp.

SoccerAmerica: Pia Sundhage sets first camp for U.S. women

THE FIRST TRAINING CAMP CONDUCTED by recently hired U.S. women's national team camp Pia Sundhage will be brief, but it will be important. She has just eight months to repair the effects of a goalkeeping controversy and a humiliating 4-0 loss to Brazil in the Women's World Cup semifinals before the Americans defend their 2004 Olympic gold medal at the 2008 Games in Beijing.

Sundhage named a squad of 23 - including 16 players from the WWC roster - for five days of training at Home Depot Center starting this Saturday.

Captain Kristine Lilly is among the absentees; goalkeepers Briana Scurry and Hope Solo, who were swept up in a media firestorm when former coach Greg Ryan switched Solo for Scurry as the starter prior to the semifinal, have both been summoned.

Defender Heather Mitts, who suffered a knee injury May 12 that knocked her off the WWC roster, has been invited to the camp. Also selected were seven collegiate players, only two of whom - Casey Nogueira and Angie Woznuk - have been capped for the senior national team.

SanDiego.com: New U.S. coach picks goalie Hope

Sundhage's roster for the five-day training camp reflects her stated desire to play a more possession-oriented style. On it are USDHS alum Angie Woznuk, a talented central midfielder who recently finished her career at Portland, and North Carolina sophomore forward Casey Nogueira, the daughter of former Sockers goalkeeper Victor Nogueira.

The Sports Network: Sundage gets first look at U.S. WNT players

Below is the mini-camp roster by position:

GOALKEEPERS (3): Nicole Barnhart (Gilbertsville, Pa.), Briana Scurry (Dayton, Minn.), Hope Solo (Richland, Wash.).

DEFENDERS (6): Rachel Buehler (Del Mar, Calif.), Marian Dalmy (Lakewood, Colo.), Kate Markgraf (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), Heather Mitts (Cincinnati, Ohio), Christie Rampone (Point Pleasant, N.J.), Cat Whitehill (Birmingham, Ala.).

MIDFIELDERS (9): Yael Averbuch (Upper Montclair, N.J.), Shannon Boxx (Redondo Beach, Calif.), Lori Chalupny (St. Louis, Mo.), Tobin Heath (Basking Ridge, N.J.), Carli Lloyd (Delran, N.J.), Leslie Osborne (Brookfield, Wis.), Aly Wagner (San Jose, Calif.), Nikki Washington (Mesquite, Texas), Angie Woznuk (El Cajon, Calif.).

FORWARDS (6): Michelle Enyeart (Hemet, Calif.), Natasha Kai (Kahuku, Hawaii), Casey Nogueira (Raleigh, N.C.), Heather O'Reilly (East Brunswick, N.J.), Lindsay Tarpley (Kalamazoo, Mich.), Abby Wambach (Rochester, N.Y.).

USSoccer Hires Pia Sundhage

USSoccer's search committee made short work of the search for a new coach for the USWNT, hiring Pia Sundhage yesterday. (BTW, her name is pronounced Soond-hahg-Eh.)

This is a good hire for so many reasons:

1. A woman should be coach of the national team. (I meant to link to this Christine Brennan column earlier. Yes, Christine, a woman should be the coach. You are late to the party, but correct.)

2. She has international experience as a player (Sweden's all-time-leading goal scorer, 6th in the 2000 voting for FIFA player of the century).

3. She has international experience as a coach (WUSA, Swedish league, China)

4. She wants the USWNT to play a possession style of football.

5. She has coached Kristine Lilly in the past (Boston Breakers) so will have that advantage in dealing with the change in strategy, Lilly's place on the team, and the reconciliation of Hope Solo.

6. I am cautiously optimistic that she will reunite Hope Solo with the team. She said in the press call announcing her appointment that Solo would remain with the team and that she is a good goalkeeper. Not exactly ringing endorsements, but given the strong positions taken on all sides it will be difficult to repair.

The woman was so popular in Sweden that they put her face on a postage stamp. Let's hope she leads the US to another gold medal at the Olympics next year.

NYTimes: New Coach for Women’s U.S. Soccer Team

USAToady: U.S. Soccer hires new women's team coach

ESPN: Sundhage to reshape U.S. team's offensive style

SoccerAmerica: Swede takes charge of U.S. women's coach [sic]