Friday, September 28, 2007

U.S. Women's Soccer Versus Brazil

There is a real furor over the comments of Hope Solo, the replaced U.S. Women's goalkeeper over the play of her replacement, in the U.S.'s devastating World Cup loss versus Brazil, 4-0.

She took both the coach and her teammate that replaced her, Brianna Scurry, to task, asserting that she, Hope Solo would have stopped those balls and implying that Ryan's mistake cost them the game.

I don't agree at all that Ryan necessarily failed his team and many of those commenting have neither followed this team, nor even bothered to watch the game against Brazil. Although I found it somewhat strange to change keepers at this point, Ryan stated his reasons for the change based upon Scurry's athleticism, and probably with the unstated knowledge that Brazil was far better than the U.S. and that it would take a miracle for the U.S. to win.

One can only hope that Solo's aftergame comments and pouting were only borne by frustration and do not indicate a self-centeredness giving truth to her surname of Solo.

The Brazilian team is far more talented than the U.S. team and probably deserved to beat us in the last Olympics. This result is no surprise at all to anyone who follows women's soccer. The U.S. could have put Gordon Banks in the net and they still would have been easily defeated.

Blaming the coach is an easy thing to do. Recognizing that U.S. soccer is simply bad in general compared to Europe and South America is a more responsible tack. The U.S. women had a huge head start and deserve recognition for making women's soccer viable, but it is doubtful that they can maintain their position if soccer loving nations really begin getting interested in women's soccer.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/070928
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Banks

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