Hope Solo

All of our area’s soccer players would love to make the U.S. National team one day and play in the World Cup or the Olympics.

Well, one former Tri-Cities player has already done that.

Hope Solo was a star for Richland back in the late 90’s.

And on Tuesday night, she came back to town to watch her Bombers play in the state tournament.

After Richland won 2-0, Solo spoke to the team and took lots of time to sign autographs and visit with fans.

She says she hasn’t been back to watch a Richland soccer game in several years.

And she adds that she’s happy to visit with all of the area’s future soccer stars.

Hope Solo says, “It’s long overdue that i’ve made it back and I’ve reached back out and given back to the community, so, I mean, these people support me and they support my career and the least I can do is sit here and sign autographs for 30 minutes. the sport has grown tremendously, especially here in the Tri-Cities, you know, I hope that one day I can get back to the program and to these kids and hopefully come back and coach.”

While Solo is popular for being a Richland star and playing for the national team, she might be best known for what happened earlier this year at the World Cup.

In case you don’t remember, she was benched right before the semifinal game against Brazil, and after the Americans lost 4-0, she spoke out against the decision to keep her on the bench.

Just one month after those comments, U.S. coach Greg Ryan was let go.

But solo had very little to say about her place on the national team.

She was asked, “What has it been like personally for you, bouncing back, I mean, now that ryan’s gone…”

And Solo said, “I’m not going to talk about the World Cup, but its good to be home.”

Solo says she’ll be in the Tri-Cities for a couple of months.

And she said she hopes to make it to the Bombers state quarterfinal game on Saturday afternoon.

Pia Sundhage is still finding her way. Although she was about to board a flight Thursday to attend the NCAA Division I women’s soccer championship, the Swede wasn’t sure of her destination’s whereabouts.

“This country is big so I have to learn,” says the U.S. women’s national team’s first foreign coach, en route to College Station, Texas.

The Americans, however, have a lot to learn from Sundhage — the all-time leading scorer in Swedish national team history — and will get their first crash course. She’s only been in the country for a week and has scheduled a five-day training camp starting this weekend.

“It’s been absolutely wonderful. It helps that I’ve been around this game for so long,” says Sundhage, 47, who also served as a scout for the U.S. team (2004), coached the Boston Breakers of the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA, 2003), and most recently was an assistant coach for China (2007).

The minicamp marks the run-up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, where the Americans hope to redeem themselves after a disappointing third-place finish at the 2007 World Cup.

First, they must get through the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Final Round qualifying tournament, being held April 2-13 in Chihuahua, Mexico. Two countries from the six-team tournament will advance.

U.S. players will gather Saturday through Wednesday at Home Depot Center outside Los Angeles to prepare for the Four Nations tournament in China next month.

“It will be nice to meet them face-to-face. I want them to know how I want to run the drills,” Sundhage says.

The 24-player minicamp roster includes 16 players from the World Cup squad. Goalkeepers Hope Solo and Briana Scurry, both of whom were at the center of a media firestorm at the World Cup that contributed to the firing of then-coach Greg Ryan, are on the roster, too.

“It is a little difficult to relive that. Mentally, I was full of all sorts of emotions,” Solo told AP, referring to her fiery comments after the U.S. lost 4-0 to Brazil in the semifinals when she was benched in favor of Scurry. “The World Cup was the only thing that kept me together after the death of my father (in June), kept me fighting and together and dedicated to the game.…

“I know I have some friendships to rebuild and teammates to rebuild relationships with. But there is nothing I can go back and do. Never did I intend to put down a teammate, and that is the thing that hurts the most. I always have respected and will respect Bri.”

Kristine Lilly, the 36-year-old captain who has yet to decide if she will retire, will not be at camp.

“I talked to people who know these players very well and got their input,” Sundhage says. “I have a little bit of a game plan where I find the right players.”

Some of those voices she’ll rely on include former national coaches April Heinrichs and Ryan.

“Pia is a fantastic person,” says Ryan, who was on Heinrichs’ 2004 Olympic staff. “I’m going to do anything I can to help her out as she gets started with the team. She’ll bring some great qualities and a different approach on and off the field. The players will probably thrive under Pia’s leadership.”

Sundhage, still putting together her staff, considers all roster spots open. She wants the team to take a more cerebral approach.

“You always want to run at people and score goals,” Sundhage says. “I want to tweak that a little bit and be smarter to find a better moment and a better chance.

“Attacking soccer is rhythm. You actually slow down the game a little bit. It takes a while. You have to be patient.”

“Decision-making is crucial if you want to keep your position.”

New coach selects both goalkeepers in preparation for Olympic qualifying

Goalkeepers Hope Solo and Briana Scurry, who were at the center of a World Cup firestorm, were invited to the U.S. women’s national team training camp by new coach Pia Sundhage.

The camp marks the beginning of the run to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The United States plays in the CONCACAF finals for Olympic qualifying April 2-13 in Chihuahua, Mexico. Two countries from the six-team tournament will advance to China.

It was in China where Solo was benched for the World Cup semifinals by then-coach Greg Ryan, who started veteran Scurry instead. The Americans played poorly, Scurry was beaten four times in a shutout loss to Brazil, and Solo bitterly criticized Ryan for the move.

Solo then was dismissed from the team, which won its third-place game.

Ryan subsequently was replaced by Sundhage, who invited 24 players to the training camp Dec. 8-12. The first games under Sundhage will be at the Four Nations Tournament in China early next year.

The minicamp roster features 16 players from the 2007 Women’s World Cup squad, along with seven players who recently finished their collegiate seasons. Defender Heather Mitts returns from a torn knee ligament last May that required surgery and caused her to miss the World Cup.

Longtime star and recent captain Kristine Lilly was not on the roster; Lilly has yet to decide if she will continue playing next year.

“It’s a short camp, but it will be valuable time spent together as a team and a unique moment for me to have a chance to work with the best players in the United States for the first time,” Sundhage said. “It will give us the chance to get to know them as players a little bit more, they’ll get the chance to learn my style and I’ll also get the chance to get to know them off the field. It will be a good start to something new.”

The roster:

GOALKEEPERS: Nicole Barnhart, Briana Scurry, Hope Solo.

DEFENDERS: Rachel Buehler, Marian Dalmy, Kate Markgraf, Heather Mitts, Christie Rampone, Cat Whitehill.
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Nearly three months after her World Cup fell apart, Hope Solo still is pained by the experience.

In her first public comments since a brutally frank TV interview in which she criticized her benching, Solo told The Associated Press she never saw it coming and wasn’t prepared for it.

“I had felt as though my childhood dream basically had been ripped away from me,” she said.

The starting goalkeeper for the U.S. soccer team in China, Solo played well in the opening round and quarterfinals. But then coach Greg Ryan benched her for veteran Briana Scurry against Brazil, and the Americans were routed 4-0.

After the loss, Solo said: “It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that. There’s no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. … You have to live in the present. And you can’t live by big names. You can’t live in the past.”

Ryan dismissed Solo from the team. She wasn’t allowed on the bench for the third-place game, did not participate in the medal ceremony and flew home from China on her own.

Until Thursday, Solo had only spoken with close friends and family about her ordeal. As she prepares for a training camp in Carson, Calif., where she will mingle with many of the World Cup players, Solo spoke to the AP by phone.

“It is a little difficult to relive that,” she said. “Mentally, I was full of all sorts of emotions. The World Cup was the only thing that kept me together after the death of my father (in June), kept me fighting and together and dedicated to the game.

“Moreso, the moment I realized we didn’t have the opportunity to win the gold medal, my world came tumbling down. I had nothing to immediately give back to my father. I was wound so tight emotionally, and the moment after the loss I broke.”

The worst part, Solo said, was her comments seemed directed at her teammates as well as at Ryan, who recently was replaced at coach by Pia Sundhage.

“Of course I know I have some friendships to rebuild and teammates to rebuild relationships with,” she said. “But there is nothing I can go back and do.

“Never did I intend to put down a teammate, and that is the thing that hurts the most. I always have respected and will respect Bri. And that is the thing that hurts me the most.”

Solo issued an apology through U.S. Soccer just before an exhibition tour against Mexico in October. She and Scurry were together during that series, along with most of the World Cup players.

“I have reached out to her, but beyond the Mexico series we have not really spoken, which is not unusual with my teammates, because we’re often not together for long (stretches),” Solo said.

“I have spoken to a handful of different teammates here and there at different levels. In the end, we are all professionals and have a common goal to qualify for the 2008 Olympics. I can only hope we put our differences aside because we have a job to do.

“It’s important we respect each other on the field; we don’t have to be best friends off the field.”

The 25-year-old keeper from Richland, Wash., chuckled at the irony of the Olympics, for which the Americans must qualify in April, being staged in China.

“China is going to bring back a lot of memories for me, no doubt,” she said. “But I’ve been through a lot of worse things in life.”

Particularly the death of her father, Jeffrey. Would getting that gold medal in the Olympics ease the pain from the World Cup fiasco?

“My father was even more excited about this World Cup than I was,” she said, her voice cracking. “Looking back, it is not just gold medals that I have to celebrate his life and give back to his passing. If I never see a gold medal in my life, I will be doing what I can to make my father proud.”