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.

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 Looking Good

The United States' Natasha Kai (6) celebrates with teammate Carli Lloyd, left, after scoring a goal against Canada during the second half of an international friendly soccer match at RFK stadium in Washington Saturday, May 10, 2008. The United States won 6-0.
(AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
Coach Mom & I saw the USWNT crush Canada 6-0 at RFK Stadium in DC on Mother's Day weekend. A hat trick from Natasha Kai, great work by Abby Wambach, fantastic passing and possession. In general, more of the beautiful game that the US women haven't played since the departure of "the old bags" and the ascension of the reviled Greg Ryan. Here are some videos & reports of the action:





And on the Today show the following Monday:


SoccerAmerica: USA smashes Canada in Concacaf rematch

ESPNSoccerNet: U.S. continues stunning progress under Sundhage

WaPo: Kai Nets Hat Trick For U.S. Women
Tuneup Turns Into Rout in 2nd Half: United States 6, Canada 0

USAToady: U.S. women blank Canada 6-0 behind Kai's hat trick

Washington Times: Kai, USA Have Their Way

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 Wins Algarve Cup

Natasha Kai, center, from the USA's women national soccer team celebrates after scoring against Denmark during their Algarve Cup final match Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at Vila Real de Santo Antonio's stadium, in the Algarve, Portugal. (AP Photo/Steven Governo) (Steven Governo - AP)

Natasha Kai and Abby Wambach score as the U.S. wins 2-1 over Denmark.

Why didn't Greg Ryan play Kai in the World Cup? Oh right, he's a moron. And guess who was in goal for the championship game? That's right, our #1 goalkeeper, Hope Solo. Rot in hell Greg Ryan. You stole our third World Cup right from under our noses!

ussoccer: Game Report

WaPo: US Soccer Wins Algarve Cup

VILA REAL DE SANTO ANTONIO, Portugal -- Abby Wambach scored her 88th international goal Wednesday to help the United States win the Algarve Cup for a record sixth time with a 2-1 victory over Denmark.

Wambach scored the winning goal in the 49th minute, sprinting down the right flank and breaking two tackles before exchanging passes with Natasha Kai and sending a low drive into the corner.

Kai gave the Americans the lead with a header in the 14th, but Denmark's Cathrine Sorensen scored in the 30th.

A classic photo of our take-no-prisoners striker Abby Wambach:
Check out the tats on Kai:
And the attitide!

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

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.

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."

Greg Ryan

WaPo Soccer Insider: Ryan Out As Women's Coach

Better late than never. The guy should have been fired in the middle of the World Cup for pulling that stunt of changing goalkeepers midstream. I wouldn't want to go hunting with Sunil Gulati. By the time he decided to shoot, it would have changed seasons.

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.

USA Women Need A New Coach

Greg Ryan is the coach of the USA women's World Cup team, and he thinks he's a great soccer tactician. He DELIBERATELY has the US playing a bonehead, boot the ball up to the forwards style. Like Sir Alex Ferguson is a fool for teaching his players to possess. Guus Hiddink -- clearly knows nothing about soccer. Ditto Klinsmann. All those managers have it wrong. Greg Ryan has the superior tactical knowledge -- he thinks.

So if someone asks you why the US team is playing such ugly soccer, you tell them: BECAUSE THEIR COACH IS AN IDIOT. He doesn't believe in technique or possession. Let's hope our team's pure talent lets them win the Cup despite their coach's 80s tactics.

FIFA.com: Direct US reflect new realities

With Wambach's 78 goals in 96 internationals, this reliance on her forward power seems to have its benefits, even if it provides a contrast with the days when Hamm, Tiffeny Milbrett and Joy Fawcett were moving the ball around the field in a short-passing style. According to coach Ryan, though, the new way is simply a reflection of an overall improvement in the level of the women's game worldwide. "The game has changed so much in the last seven or eight years," Ryan told FIFA.com ahead of the Group B leaders' game in Shanghai against Nigeria.

"Back then, you could get away with playing little passes all over the field and have success doing it. But in the modern game, a team that just knocks the ball around the middle of the park is going to get killed doing it," continued Ryan, who replaced 1991 world champion-turned-coach April Heinrichs in 2005 and signalled a shift from the technique-driven short-passing game to a more physical and direct style.

The only way
"If you spend all your time trying to look pretty, you're going to end up with big problems the other way," said Ryan, who lined up alongside Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto in his playing days with New York Cosmos. "We try to attack, exploit the space and turn it into goals," he said. "This is the only way to play now. Look at what happened to China when they were risking things right in front of their own goal against Brazil. They got stuffed 4-0."

Wambach's second goal against the Swedes, her third in two matches, was as direct as you will see - a long ball from Lilly in midfield, controlled with the chest and hit ferociously on the half-volley. Far from ugly or overly simple, the strike was an artistic and elegant statement about the efficiency that has crept into the women's game.

Far from the backward step that some have labelled it, USA's new direct style speaks to improvements across the board - largely inspired by the Americans' previous dominance. But opponents and fellow contenders like Brazil, Germany, and Korea DPR, who still play an attractive short-passing game, would be mistaken if they thought the Americans had become a one-trick pony.

"Every game is different," said Lilly, who has seen it all in a career spanning nearly 20 years. "If we get something out of going up over the top, then we'll do that. But if we can get the ball down and move it around and beat a team that way, that would be great too." As the women's game undergoes undeniable changes and rapid shifts - all visible here in China - USA's desire to be the best is the same as it ever was.