Re: Hope Goes Balistic at News Conference Psychic powers nothing. It is common sense, decency and respect, all of which this PR guy lacked. Was it the Jim Mike fella who was in charge? Amazing how some do not understand how emotions and andrenaline play a big part in this whole scenario.
Re: Chastain, Foudy & Mia pissed is anyone listening? Chastain's plight was unique then too. Foudy, Hamm, Lilly, and Fawcett..., their spots on the squad were handed to them and assumed when they were still babies. On the current squad, Boxx and Solo are similar in that they had to find a backdoor via the WUSA, and Boxx has had to return from major injuries. The problem of not finding and developing new players to challenge establish ones is not new, and something the 91ers didn't solve either, unless you count the brief existence of the WUSA.
Re: Who wins the spin? http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/070928 back to..? love a writer taking both sides
Re: Chastain, Foudy & Mia pissed is anyone listening? IMO, Brandi's opinions come from spite because Ryan released her from the team. She tried to get April fired now she's going after Ryan. Why can't Brandi gracefully retire and go do something else.
Re: Hope Issues Statement How many Hope Solo threads will we have here on BigSoccer before Sunday??? Is there a MOD out there that would merge most of these threads into a "All Things Hope" thread?? That said, it's a great statement from Hope! Exactly what she should have said in the first place...But understandable it didn't come out that way post match... I cannot believe how two or a thousand people can interpret her initial statement differently!! I've disagreed with close friends and family it seems 50/50...Half say it was directed at Ryan and meant no ill will towards Bri and the other half(my half) saying yes it was directed at Ryan but Bri was caught in the crossfire!! IMO Hope threw a grenade at Greg Ryan and it landed right on his lap, problem was Bri was sitting right next to him!! I don't think there's a question that Greg Ryan was on his own island (Was Brett Hall and Phil Wheddon on board?? Can't wait to hear from them!) and had just about the rest of the world scratching their heads wondering if he was stupid, ignorant, clueless or all of the above...But as soon as Hope said what she did a bunch of people jumped off the Team Hope bandwagon!! Hopefully this statement has those people climbing back aboard...Hope is and will continue to be for the foreseeable future the GK that gives us our best chance to win!! Hopefully US Soccer don't allow this buffoon manage this side through the Olympics....I don't think he gets out of China with his job but nothing would surprise me when it comes to US Soccer
Re: Hope Issues Statement In women's US Soccer, we like our superstars petulant and our coaches groveling. As if a Brazilian coach ever apologized.
Re: Ryan basically trashes Hope today But goalkeeping is a position where many have aged well doing it because experience has a lot to do with it. Dino Zoff captained Italy at the age 40 when they won the world cup in 1982, Peter Shilton, Gordon Banks and more goalkeepers are also examples right off. This is just a general truism, I don't know if it is different for women. Oliver Kahn is still excellent. Past his sell date, ha.
Re: Style of Play = U.S. Outcome? Well said. In the Brazil match, at 0:30 Marta just blew by Rampone, who is supposed to be fast. At ?:??, O'Reilly, another supposedly fast player, showed that she has about as much speed as Maycon running with the ball. At 55:19 Chalupny was easily beaten down the left flank by Formiga. She is supposed to be the team's attacking midfielder but she has no pace. So she could neither generate attacks or prevent Brazil from starting attacks. I'm actually wondering what special quality Chalupny is supposed to be bringing to the team. Foudy often names Boxx as the creative midfielder. OMG. The third Brazil goal was the worst defensive breakdown. At 55:19 Chalupny was beaten down the left flank by Formiga as already mentioned. Whitehill was caught upfield from having just taken a throw-in. This is a significant tactical error here. Whitehill's throw-ins just are not special enough for her to be running all over the field taking them. This point had been made by Foudy. But especially against a fast man-up Brazil team, the US needed to have additional cover. Whitehill could not provide it. Osborne did not recognize the danger of Formiga's attack and stood in the center of the field watching play develop. This was either bad tactics or bad judgement. Probably mostly the latter. She should have been providing cover but provided none. Markgraf chose to leave her mark (Cristiane) to cover for the beaten Chalupny. The situation was made worse by the fact that neither Whitehill or Osborne were providing cover, and Chalupny could not catch Formiga. Had any of these three players been able to recover, the US may have been able to break up the play. It is doubtful that Scurry (or Solo) had any chance to save the resulting shot, sharply tucked into the left corner. So the goal resulted from a tremendous lack of team speed (Chalupny, Whitehill, and Osborne?), bad tactics (Whitehill), and poor decision making (Osborne). As to style of play, the US did have some chances to score goals, even down a woman. Better finishers might have converted some of those goals. Lilly for one still has some dribbling skills (no, nothng like Marta). Over all the US did make a lot of good passes in the game, particularly Whitehill. It wasn't nearly as bad as people have been led to believe.
US WNT blog in censor mode given that there are only two comments to the ryan press conference thread, and given that i know i sent a response before those two were posted i would say their is some deleteing going on. Maybe we should bombard them for the heck of it lol. I hate censorship!!!
Re: Hope Issues Statement I'm confidant she cuold have with spell check and grammer check. Myspace... While personal, I wish it were an "official" channel. Has anybody checked her facebook page for worldcup updates?
Re: US WNT blog in censor mode This is very strange. I was just going to post about it. I was checking some all emails I received and hadn't read, from two days ago, one of them had a link to a picture of Solo at the official USNT website. http://images.ussoccer.com/Images/Gallery/ So I clicked it two minutes ago and get on my screen: ------------------------------- Forbidden You don't have permission to access /Images/Gallery/ on this server. ------------------------------- No photos of Hope Solo? How can we go on living? What does it really mean? They have erased her image? Have they been learning from the Chinese government about disappearing tactics? What's going on?!?
Re: Chastain, Foudy & Mia pissed is anyone listening? I used to like Chastain, but it's time for her to stop being "me" first and just gracefully retire and go away. There aren't many women's soccer players who are known, especially for arguably doing so little on the field. When I read the article and Chastain talks about Mia, I wondered if maybe the quote was wrong and she was just saying "me, me, me, me, me uh." I agree with Foudy on some points, but these are the same points we have heard from her on tv and on BS. I just wish Foudy and co. would have been more clear about this during the ESPN broadcasts during the World Cup. I haven't seen or heard much of this from Foudy during the recent broadcasts. Just about every ESPN piece continues to sugarcoat the situation and make it out to just being about the goalie. Regardless of what Solo says, the keeper competition is close to the last thing that was the problem with this team.
Re: Style of Play = U.S. Outcome? I agree, a target player doesn't necessitate a long ball game, the US team didn't play a long ball game when Abby was paired with Mia, but when your target player scores nearly a goal a game and your second most consistent scorer is 36, the natural tendency is to start playing long balls to that target player.
Re: Chastain, Foudy & Mia pissed is anyone listening? They have every right to be pissed off and voice that sentiment. As much as it may hurt some of you, their opinions matter more than yours. Not just on these boards, but to the US Soccer community. The team was built with their sweat, blood and tears. They have every right voice disapproval. They may be "the old guard". But they still weigh heavy were it counts.
Re: Chastain, Foudy & Mia pissed is anyone listening? of course they're going to go ask the old guard what they think of this debacle. who else are they going to go ask? Marcelo Balboa? and quite frankly, Ryan has been so abominable, that it almost forces people to speak up. when it's THAT bad at the most important leadership position in U.S. Women's Soccer, you expect them to keep quiet? the USSF has brought this on themselves. in fact, it's the people that picked Ryan who really need to be called out. Ryan was clearly completely in over his head - from A to Z - and at some level, probably can't be blamed at all. he simply shouldn't have had the job in the first place.
Re: Ryan basically trashes Hope today Take it up with the German National Team's coach. List of Euro 2008 Qualifiers he has suited up for below: .
Re: Chastain, Foudy & Mia pissed is anyone listening? Funny you should bring that up: "You know what? I'll tell you what, they just need to knock the ball around a little more and ... "