You can argue back and forth about whether she was right to rip her coach in public. But a real leader wouldn't have ripped one of her teammates like Solo did. Period. Scurry was thrown in a bad spot but an incompetent coach. She did her best, but it wasn't good enough. But it was the coach's fault for putting her in that situation. For Solo to rip Scurry in public is much worse than Solo ripping Ryan.
I honestly dont know how scurry got in goal in brazil, but i have a suspicion she pushed the issue. If so she is the poorest teammate of all, although its only speculation.
Casey Keller complained loudly and with bravado after he was not played in the Korean World Cup games and it wasn't any big deal. Even saying that he would have saved the goals that Friedel let go in. I think Solo is being turned into a scapegoat. Maybe, it is the woman speaking up to a man thing. I don't get it all the way around. Hope Solo did absolutely nothing wrong. How could she, she didn't play, and somehow she is responsible for the loss because of after the fact statements. Baloney squared! Ryan is a goner and this speaks more to the ridiculous coaching paradigm the US will never get out of. "Tow the line." "Don't get fancy." and "Quit showboating". And oh yes, "Beat down all the originality of a player in lieu of "athleticism". Whatever that means. I have heard so much about Scurry being so great in that game that it insults my intelligence and should everyone else's as well. Ryan is a hack that choked and lead a charmed team that simply intimidated other teams. Talent is light, when you don't play new players that are more capable and instead stick with the "big names". I think they should make Hope Solo Player-Coach. She cared most of all and had the ovaries to tell people, and that conflicts with testicles, sorry, lack there of.
welcome to bigsoccer. (big debacles seem to bring tons of new members!) i don't think anyone blames solo for the loss. obviously she played no part in that, being on the bench and all. but that interview sure did shatter an already brittle team in a manner thats hard to do with anything on field, that's for sure. solo should have: a. stayed quiet. let everyone point the spotlight on ryan trying to figure out where that bonehead switch came from. we should be hearing a lot of "what were you thinking switching goalkeepers?" questions at every press conference. over and over again. b. if she had to say something, she should have left no doubt she thinks highly of scurry and her team, and it's the coach she thinks is a bonehead. that way, she has a half a chance of her team backing her up. never mind what she really thinks, if she's in a fight with her coach, she needs the team in her corner. c. worst thing she could have done was what she did. hothead remarks (though kinda restrained if you ask me) that can be (mis)interpreted as throwing her coach and team under the bus, thereby focusing attention on that mess rather than the mess her coach made by that bonehead switch. solo practically gives ryan a free ride with that interview.
a player challenging and critisizing players and coaches in the media? see Roy Keane. Machester United captain. Sunderland manager. "Roy's obsession with winning and the demands he put on others made him the most influential player in the dressing room," said Alex Ferguson. "He became a great captain through that and, to my mind, he is the best player I have had in all of my time here. I am glad Hope was terribly upset after the match. Leaders make waves. The cattle play it safe and stay quiet. Hope was in residency training her ass of with the rest of the players. Toughed it out through injury to play with her teammates. They know she is in it to win it. Once Ryan is removed the barrier to her return is gone. She will be back. The issue is with Ryan.
all true. but where was keano in WC2002 korea? and how did his united days end? sent packing both times cuz it's the coach who calls the shots, good or bad. good thing for roy he found somewhere to go, and now he calls the shots.
yes Keano was booted off the WC squad by coach McCarthy. the why of that action actually go back much further than 2002. would Kean have been right to simply accept McCarthy's system? Kean made a choice and it had consequences. in my opinion, that is what a leader does. cattle sinmply follows silent. note that Ferusen's comments about Keane came after Keane parted ways from ManU. Alex has nothing but good things to say about Roy. for better or worse Keane has always spoke his mind honestly and Fergusen hailed him as a great leader because of it. what I am trying to point out is that Hope Solo's honesty and obvious passion can be positives. one comment pointed out Keller making similar statements. Keane is another example. Hope Solo is taking heat for caring about the result and speaking her mind.
there is a time and a place for everything. solo just said what obviously a large number of people were already thinking. no one needed her to say anything, especially in a way that could be misconstrued by people, including her teammates, as a slam against one of their brethren. see my post #29. all she really accomplished was taking ryan off the hotseat and putting herself on it. again, i'm with solo on what she said. i just dont' think that was the time or place to say it. cuz now, instead of ryan having to answer 500 questions on what the hell he was thinking with the goalie switch, he gets to talk about hope solo.
Scurry didn't get a chance to talk to the media. The US PR officer rushed her through the mix zone. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/fifawomens/blog-paul/2007/09/ryans_goalkeeper_switch_backfi.html
yeah, i've read that. i'm not sure what your point is though. the journalist did what journalists everywhere do; try to get an interview. scurry knew a bad thing when she saw it and hoofed it outta there at the pr guys urging. solo shoulda done the same. then maybe there would be ten thousand posts on "what was ryan thinking?" rather than solo this and solo that.
....and again she was essentially challenged by the PR officer. Remember we are talking about women's soccer which includes Foudy's precious Title IX. You don't think that set off a switch? We come from the country of freedom of speech in a place like China and you have the male PR officer lighting the match in a pool of gasoline. I totally agree with the Keane assessment.
If you really read that article you would have read that Solo initially had walked past the reporter when the PR chimed in with his "You only want to talk to the players that played" comment. That comment combined with a player who was already visibly pissed off from the game is like screaming fire in a crowded room. I'm not saying what she said or when she said it was right, but I understand why she said what she said. People need to give here a break. People are only going on and on about what she said because the coach and team has let it remain a topic. As much as Ryan and the old ass players that used to play have gone on and on about how things are handled internally, you would think they would handle Solo's comments internally. Kind of ironic, don't ya think?
again, i'm not sure what your point about the pr guys is. yes, he could have been a little smoother with his comments and get solo to the bus without incident, and as a pr guy, you'd think he would be a little smarter in choosing words. and i can understand why solo snapped and gave the ill-advised interview. i honestly might have done the same thing. but still, she knew what was coming (or should have). she knew journalists would be all over her. she also knew that "anyone who knows anything about soccer" would agree with what she was saying. she didn't need to put herself front and center, especially when coach ryan was about to get the grilling and flogging of his life from every uswnt fan the world over. as it turned out, if she had listened to the pr guy, she might be starting against norway, and ryan would be hearing "why did you think switching gk's was a good idea?" 5 times a minute from everyone he saw.
She had 90 minutes to sit and watch everything she worked so hard for go down the tubes. The anger doesn't dissapate it only gets worse (head racing with pros and cons). She probably didn't even want to be there (pure torture), but tried to put on a brave face and had trouble even doing that. It is evident even in the replay video how the team was rehearsed in PR in that when she had her head down that Natasha Kai pokes her after watching the stadium monitors during the match. Meanwhile the a coach that should be humbled by a loss is making carefree gestures to winning team members. "Oh well we'll gettem next time."
I understand what you are saying, but everything with her happened in the heat of the moment. She was not in a press conference where she was prepared to field questions. There is a reason she rushed through the mix zone, initially ignoring the one Canadian reporter who asked her a question. People do not realize that the Canadian reporter was the only one who got her to talk. The clips you saw on ESPN and everywhere else was borrowed from that reporter. In hindsight it is pretty easy to see that she should have bit her tongue and just got on the bus, but I will not hold her moment of mental weakness against her. My biggest issue is that if the team and its handlers are so adamant about how things are handled behind closed doors, then why the hell do they keep commenting on it in the press??
Why not??? She showed real unabridged passion for speaking out against her coach and an inept back-up goalie (Now whether that was right or wrong...is a matter of opinion). After a huge flub-up in the North Korea game she didnt give up and came back even more determined to do better...I wonder why Coach Ryan didnt replace her after the Korea Game??... Solo has real bottle...drive and passion....Shes obviously talented, outspoken and commands a lot of attention...Give her the armband. Simon Allen World Soccer Wrap
Hope's comment was similar to Scurry's on Siri Mullinix years before. Players do these things so I don't get the PC mantra. The difference here is that before the game even start, most of us knew it would be a disaster. Go back and look at the threads on the goalie switch announcement, on every soccer forum of the internet including other countries and people echoed the same thing: wrong move, coach. Sure maybe Hope shouldn't have said what she did, but it's possible to forgive since all that she'd worked for got ripped from her. Maybe some of you can't forgive, but I can. Maybe we're just different. To be honest, with me, forgiveness was never a consideration. What she did didn't offend me any. I admire her for speaking her mind for that's what strong, fiery competitors do. That's what Americans do. By speaking out she served as the springboard so the likes of Rob Stone, DiCicco, Foudy, 99ers can freely take swipes at Ryan more so than the meekly jabs here and there. If the coach or the team can't handle it, screw'em. Hope Solo is right, that's where it's at. The team need to unite behind her, and make Ryan play her Sunday. To do otherwise is to rally behind his incompetency. Apparently their true colors came shining through. Go Norway!
an earlier comment stated that Solo did not need to put herself front and center with her comments. i agree, she did not NEED to. but she did it anyways. sounds like a leader to me. her passion and stance will precipitate a complete overhaul of the USWNT program. she will be known as an agent of change. sounds like a leader to me. you dont really think Ryan is out of the woods becauseof Solo's attention do you?
When one of the reporters approached Hope about the game in the mix zone, a US PR flack tried to intervene and said something to the effect of, "Hope can't talk to you; she didn't play in the game." (according to one of the BS posts). Hope told the flack that she would talk to whomever she wanted. Gasoline meets match and we see the result. My point is the the PR flack handled it poorly with a poor and challenging choice of words. If the PR flack had been more direct with Hope and said, " Hope, I don't think it's in your best interest to give an interview now." Hope also deserves some blame when "the help" got a little bit uppity.