At what point is a superstar more trouble than she’s worth?
How many infractions of team rules does it take? How
many run-ins with the law? And how many displays of poor sportsmanship
and taste?
Before the collective heft of those actions outweighs the benefits of her contributions on the field?
Does Hope Solo the goalkeeper still justify having to
deal with Hope Solo the person? The one who can’t keep her mouth shut
after painful losses? The one whose criminal case for allegedly abusing
her half-sister and her son has been reopened? The one who has had
several other run-ins with the law? The one who has brought more
negative attention to the United States women’s national team than every
other player in its long and laureled history combined?
Those are the questions U.S. Soccer must have
grappled with before deciding that Solo no longer justified the bother
of having Solo on the team. On Wednesday, she was formally suspended
from the women’s national team for six months, a year and a half after
she was suspended for 30 days when her husband, former NFL player
Jerramy Stevens, was arrested for driving a women’s national team van
under the influence with Solo, reportedly also inebriated, in the
passenger seat – an incident she failed to disclose to the federation
before it was reported in the media.
This time around, Solo called the Swedish team that
knocked the USA out of the quarterfinals of the Rio Olympics on
penalties “cowards” for its conservative playing style, just after the
loss cemented the worst American performance at a major tournament. She
was heavily criticized for her comments, including by several teammates.
U.S. SOCCER SEEMS TO HAVE DECIDED THAT HOPE SOLO IS MORE TROUBLE THAN SHE’S WORTH. (AP)
U.S. Soccer told several outlets that her
suspension was the consequence of an accumulation of incidents, rather
than a punishment meted out solely for the most recent one.
Solo, 35, had a strong game against France at
the Olympics, conserving a narrow victory, but a terrible miscue and a
missed punch against Colombia gave away a win in the USA’s final group
stage match. And those flubs conspired to form an impression that Solo’s
prime might be slipping away. She was named the best goalkeeper at both
the 2011 and 2015 World Cups, but it’s conceivable that she has already
played in her last big tournament.
After all, she wasn’t merely suspended – a
punishment with a relatively modest scope, since the Americans will play
just two games in that six-month span, an unusually low volume of
matches by their standards. Her contract with the federation was also
canceled. The established women’s national team players have a full-time
deal with the federation that pays them a salary and benefits. Solo’s
was terminated with three months’ severance, per FourFourTwo USA. It has
been widely reported that her contract with the Seattle Reign of the
National Women’s Soccer League remains in force, even though it is tied
into her USSF deal.
The U.S. women’s national team’s
players’ association lawyer has said that he will file a grievance on
Solo’s behalf. The lawyer also charged that Solo’s First Amendment
rights are being violated, which is absurd, since her speech isn’t being
impeded by a government – she’s merely been kicked off a team that had
included her voluntarily.
This wasn’t an employee sent home for a
while. If hers was a regular workplace, Solo would have been told to
clear out her desk and escorted off the premise. There is no guarantee
that she’ll return to the program when her suspension is up in February
of next year.
Consider that the women’s national team has
no big games until the Women’s World Cup rolls around again in 2019. By
that time, Solo would be almost 38, old even for a goalkeeper. Old
especially for a goalkeeper with a history of severe shoulder injuries.
That gives head coach Jill Ellis plenty of time to get a replacement
accustomed to the glare of the starting women’s national team job. In
Alyssa Naeher and Ashlyn Harris, she has two capable alternatives. And
while neither is Solo’s equal, the drop-off isn’t enormous, especially
if there’s an eagerness to construct a Solo-less team.
This, however, brings up a troubling
question. U.S. Soccer put up with Solo’s antics for the better part of a
decade, since she harshly and publicly criticized then-head coach Greg
Ryan for benching her in favor of the aging Brianna Scurry in the
semifinals of the 2007 World Cup – a game lost 4-0 to Brazil. But no
matter what she did, no matter how much negative publicity she cast on
her team and employers, Solo remained firmly ensconced between the USA’s
sticks. The federation even stood by her as her domestic violence case
was initially heard – and then dismissed on a technicality, before it
was reopened on a rare prosecutor’s appeal.
So long as she remained a difference-maker in
goal, and a draw at the box office, U.S. Soccer was ready to forgive
Solo for far more serious incidents than insulting opponents. It
shouldn’t be lost on anyone that for a lot of that time, the gap in
skill between Solo and any would-be replacement was vast.
Now that her best games might be in her wake,
she’s been dumped. If this was all a pretext for U.S. Soccer to force
an end to its relationship with a player who remains almost
incomprehensibly popular among the team’s fan base – go to a game in
person and you’ll be astonished at the cheers and shrieks Solo still
gets from young girls – it was a clumsy way of going about it.
Because saying something unflattering about
your opponents is hardly a novelty invented by Solo. In a statement,
U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati said that her comments “were
unacceptable and do not meet the standard of conduct we require from our
national team players.”
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