http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3038644&name=chang_jen http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=467450&root=womensworldcup2007&cc=5901 http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=278343 http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=467476&root=womensworldcup200725&cc=5901
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/cs-070927uswomensoccer,1,1490194.story http://www.mercurynews.com/othersports/ci_7015349
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp...y?coll=la-headlines-sports&ctrack=1&cset=true Good article from the LA Times.
The Washington Post's Steve Goff: After Upset, U.S. Women's Soccer May Be On Equal Footing With Everyone Else If he is around you can bet that these "great players coming up" will never see the field in significant games.
LOL equal footing??? I think you can easily make the case that Germany and Brazil have passed us and that the likes of North Korea are on equal footing.
SD Union-Tribune U.S. Women suffer 'worst loss,' against Brazil http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/soccer/20070928-9999-1s28womcup.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news;_y...YF?slug=ro-soloryan092707&prov=yhoo&type=lgns A well-written and reasoned article that accurately describes the problems without resorting to panic, despair, and chicken-little "the sky is falling on U.S. women's soccer" hyperbole so present today.
The article from the San Diego Tribune had one error in it. He refers to Colorado College as a D3 school. While technically correct for most sports, years ago CC got special dispensation from the poohbahs at NCAA and compete in D1 in both Womens Soccer and Mens Hockey. CC also is a sure way to win a bar bet. Ask your mark to name the D3 school which once won the NCAA d1 title in women's soccer. They will never guess that unless they are a CC alum...
Blaming it all on the goalkeeper switch while taking it as a given that the US is "the best" (despite the evidence on the field yesterday) doesn't seem terribly well-reasoned to me.
This was so far from the impression I got that I re-read the article. It's not unreasonable to call the #1 ranked team in the world (at the time) the best. The damning point was how Ryan destroyed his team's confidence. If the U.S. came into the Brazil match confidently and was defeated 4-0, then a designation of "the best" would seem unreasonable. But as many observers have noted, this U.S. side was not playing its best or with confidence coming into the match. If anyone believes the U.S. played its best yesterday, please PM me with the source of what's being ingested. Too many observers are ready to relegate the U.S. to the scrap heap of women's soccer, tear apart any current system to its Stone Age foundations to rebuild, and permanently abandon any hope of the U.S. competing for gold ever again. Is this unreasonable hyperbole? No more than many of the articles written since yesterday morning. Sorry, naysayers, all it will take is a coaching change and a refocusing to playing a complete game of soccer, instead of relying on one philosophy. Gold in '08 is not unreasonable, and is actually more likely than not. See '03 vs. '04.
I don't think the US will be the odds-on favorite to win a major tournament again, just one of three or four teams capable of winning the prize. Gold in 2008 is a possibility, but I'd say silver and bronze are about equally likely - even in 2004, the win was close to being against the run of play. What concerns me is that people will conclude that the GK change is the whole of the problem and not worry about anything else. I agree that we need to go back to playing a complete game of soccer, but that means jettisoning the players who are limited and grooming those with a full range of soccer skills. I don't know if we can do that in a year, particularly when - as others have noted - the entire development program feeding into the national team discourages the sort of brilliance that the Brazilian players exemplify.
Unfortunately for this tournament, one such player was out-of-form (Lloyd), and one barely touched the pitch (Tarpley). We do need more, though, and yes, the GK boondoggle was not the sole reason...more like the proverbial straw vs. camel's back, or the burning match vs. gunpowder magazine, or (insert metaphors here).
http://sidelineviews.blogspot.com/2007/09/playing-cute-card.html Some of the best commentary I've seen on this entire matter.
http://topdrawersoccer.com/loney/?p=380 “Well, my respect for Abby Wambach, Kristine Lilly and the rest of the greatest team Brazil never heard of has taken a serious beating today. I’m so ticked off, I’m not using the “US Gives Up Hope” headline. So I’m left with the Simpsons reference. If the theory is that the USWNT must have co-workers whom they love and respect unconditionally, that theory died a pig’s death when the US went down by two to Brazil, then grouped together, faced adversity, trusted in their mutual love and respect - and gave up two more. If that’s what they represent, if that’s what they have to offer, then take the “United States” off the shirts and gear, and stop asking American soccer fans to give you the time of day. Call yourselves “Twenty Women Who Like Each Other,” and give the program to people who are actually willing to put the sport first. Why did they choose Greg Ryan over Hope Solo? Why is Solo speaking in the heat of the moment unacceptable, but the power structure of the USWNT orchestrating a series of attacks on Solo’s character tolerable? How could publicly throwing Solo off the team be less damaging than simply saying “That’s her opinion”? They’re honestly more angry at Solo than their own abject failure? …………….. And do they really think loyalty to Greg Ryan is going to pay off? He’s out of a job less than twenty-four hours from now. Solo’s in the prime of her career. If they were legitimately making a Machiavellian choice about what’s best for the team’s future, they should be on the plane next to her. Ryan ain’t coming back. Neither is Scurry. So Nicole Barnhart is the new number one keeper for the United States, and she hasn’t earned her spot. If she’s representing the United States in the Olympics next year, it has to be because she’s the best. Not because Lilly and Wambach and eighteen other women are looking for scapegoats, and China is suffering a mirror shortage. If those twenty players are so fragile that Hope Solo speaking her mind to a reporter AFTER the most damaging loss in this history of the program that they’re willing to toss the best keeper in the country off the team, then it sounds like we need another twenty players, not another goalkeeper. There are a lot of Americans in China right now who have a lot of questions to answer, and whose behavior has badly hurt their team and their sport. Hope Solo ain’t one of them.”
"Solo couldn't play or train with the team and had to take her meals apart as the team shunned her. By Sunday evening, it was unclear if she would even fly back to the U.S. with the team she had been a part of for more than two years. "The circumstance that happened and her going public has affected the whole group," said Kristine Lilly, a 36-year-old forward who played in a record fifth World Cup. "And having her with us would still be a distraction." While Solo's actions were clearly unacceptable in a team context, there was a touching back-story that made her emotional reaction understandable, at least to one side in the public debate: Her father, Jeffrey, died of heart failure June 15 at 69. She sprinkled her father's ashes in the goal box before every World Cup game on a mission to take him with her to a world championship. "The only one who really knew me was my father," she says." http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/worldcup/2007-09-30-Solo-outburst_N.htm "Ryan's Hope: Soap opera continues. Like it or not, the Solo controversy still won't go away. Solo watched the game with her family back at the team hotel. It is not known whether she received a bronze medal, since she wasn't at the stadium to pick it up. She hasn't eaten with the team since Ryan decided that that it would be best for the team if Solo did not practice or come to the stadium with the team for the third-place match. Ryan wouldn't say whether Solo would return home with the team, but there were indications she might return on a separate flight. Ryan said that the situation was being handled internally with the team. The U.S. team is scheduled to fly home Monday. Whitehill, Solo's roommate earlier in the cup and a good friend of the 'keeper's, said she had forgiven Solo. "Anything is possible," she said. "We know what a great goalkeeper Hope is. She proved it during this World Cup. She's a good friend of mine, and I hope she will be able to do it." Forward Abby Wambach sounded like she was willing to let bygones be bygones. "If I were to see her, I'd probably give her a smile and a hug," she said. "I just want to celebrate the win and third place." And was Scurry in a forgiving mood? She certainly was, especially after Solo apologized to her in person. "I'm an incredibly forgiving person, always has been," she said. "The most important thing to me is how we conduct ourselves on and off the field." http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20070930&content_id=120293&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp
Ok now that just makes me SICK. THEY WOULDNT EVEN EAT WITH HER. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? I am SOO MAD I AM LITERALLY SHAKING.