1115.org

As I’ve been doing for the last two weeks, I got up this morning at five (no more tournaments in Asia please) to watch the Women’s World Cup. It was just a day after word got out that U.S. coach Greg Ryan had decided to bench starting keeper Hope Solo in favor of her 36-yr-old backup, former starter Briana Scurry. I should have opted for the extra two hours’ sleep as the U.S. went down 4-0 to the Brazilians. Clearly the U.S. suffered for Ryan’s inexplicable decision, they didn’t play as a team, gave up the opening own goal, and another bad first-half score. It just got worse from there, culminating in Ryan making defensive down three goals. Fantastic.

If you follow any sports, you’ll find the number of players who publicly question their coaches to be pretty small, outside of mega-superstars who mostly control their own destinies.

Hope Solo doesn’t care about that:

“It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that,” she said. “There’s no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is it’s not 2004 anymore. … It’s 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can’t live by big names. You can’t live in the past. It doesn’t matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold medal game in the Olympics three years ago. Now is what matters, and that’s what I think.”

Refreshing, and of course she’s exactly right. Makes me wonder if she doesn’t already know Ryan’s out the door. I don’t imagine she’d get to play much for the guy if he was staying.