Hope Solo rips US Soccer coach Greg Ryan

you're splitting hairs.

I'm still right.

kshead-the coaches decision should be called into question, but the players ought to keep their anger about it in house. I see disappointment, but Solo came off as a spoiled brat that didn't get her way.

 

The poor taste doesn't bother me - and that is basically what we are arguing here - whether it's in poor taste for a player to go ahead and call the coach a dumbass when everyone else is already thinking it. Call it hindsight if you want, but Wilbon and Korny talked about it for two days on PTI before the switch - that the coach had better be right.

I'd be a lot more inclined to agree with you on the spoiled brat part if she had bad mouthed the guy after they had won but she hadn't gotten to play. I actually thought it a bit refreshing. You sure as shit won't see that in an NFL press conference.

 

making that switch was risky--I agree. Still, when it goes poorly, and your team gets outplayed early, and then loses a player to a yellow card...it's not your night.

 

Exactly. Very poor communication with defenders that she hadn't played with all tournament.

There were no attackers near the ball, she should have had her defender let the ball pass through harmlessly.

 

is it at all possible that she did call the defender off, and the defender just acted on instinct?

The defender likely makes the same play with Solo in the net, and Brazil still leads 1-0.

It wasn't Scurry's fault that they lost. Period.

 

Is there anyone associated with the team that we're allowed to be critical of here? Aside from the whiny goaltender, I mean?

 

No. The defender was forced to make the play because Scurry did not call her off. To be a little fair, the defender near post should hav edone a better job reading the situation as well and taken the ball, but that is neither here nor there.

Scurry should have seen that there was no danger (Brazil only had one person near the ball, and if you look closely, she give up on the play). Scurry should have made a call, but she froze.

It was almost like she hadn't seen game action in a little while or something.

 

sure. the players in front of the net that couldn't manage as many qualifty scoring chances against Brazil as they had against the other teams they beat along the way. It was a junk effort on all sides. Goalkeeping, attack, defending....junk. They played poorly, and Brazil played very well.

 

Think about the chemistry aspect. Would the defender have felt it necessary to head the ball away if she wasn't concerned about the competency of her goaltender? There weren't any Brazilians in that part of the box, so it easily could have been let through to the goalie. Or maybe Solo would have been more authoritative and yelled that she had it. To say that he not being on the pitch had no effect on the goal is dubious at best. And only one of the other three even would have been a tough save.

Also, the call that put the U.S. down a player was completely bogus, but that's getting lost in this story. In any case, Brazil was the better team and deserved to win. They're probably the only women's team I've ever seen that isn't excruciating to watch.

 

wow