Inevitably, Hope Solo cut loose, letting all of her frustrations fall from her mouth.
The United States women’s national team had just been eliminated from the Rio Olympics prematurely
— a 1-1 quarterfinal tie, eventually lost to Sweden on penalties — so
it was time for another tirade by the Americans’ controversial
goalkeeper.
She told reporters that the U.S. had played “a
courageous game.” That the U.S. had “showed a lot of heart” and
“American heart.” And that Sweden had been “a bunch of cowards” because
“they didn’t want to play great soccer.”
Certainly, Sweden had sat in and preyed on the
counter for all 120 minutes of its game against the U.S. And for a lot
of those minutes, it didn’t even really look to attack at all, instead
absorbing pressure and letting the American waves wash up on
its defensive dunes.
It knew full well that they were outmatched. Their
head coach, Pia Sundhage, was the USA’s coach from 2007-12, after all.
And if the generation she coached has largely aged out, she nevertheless
understands the program, its strengths and, crucially, its weaknesses.
She also knew that her team is limited going forward and had scored just
twice in the group stage, barely squeaking through to the quarterfinals
as the last team to qualify, with a 1-1-1 record and a minus-3 goal
differential (courtesy of a 5-1 demolishing by Brazil). She had learned
from that loss, from trying to play with a better team.
So when faced with an impossibly deep roster of
American attacking talent, Sundhage set up a team that you might call
cynical, or perhaps even cowardly. Because it’s a coach’s job to
optimize her team’s chances of winning. And it’s a team’s job to find
whatever ways of winning it can to get the game won.
Solo complaining about the U.S. essentially
being outfoxed rings as hollow as an outsmarted kid accusing his
vanquisher of cheating. The U.S. did play a “courageous game” with a
“lot of heart.” Maybe even “American heart,” whatever that means. But
Sweden won, because it had a better idea for how to win.
Hope Solo and the U.S. failed to reach the Olympic final for the first time. (Reuters)
Because in truth, the Americans played right
into Sweden’s strengths. Or rather, they allowed their own weaknesses to
be abused. Under head coach Jill Ellis, who eventually succeeded
Sundhage — with Tom Sermanni’s brief spell in charge bridging their
terms — the Americans have evolved from a direct team, sort of like
Sweden is now, into a much more evolved one. They have incorporated the
stupefying skill of Tobin Heath and Christen Press, and young attackers
Crystal Dunn and Mallory Pugh.
But even though they made strides in their
attacking fluency in the year since winning the Women’s World Cup, when a
series of retirements by veterans and the sudden availability of time
finally gave Ellis a chance to rebuild and remake, the Americans went
back to pelting crosses at the Swedes. Rather than play the ball over
the ground, creating overloads on the flanks and cutting the ball back
to their many attacking weapons, they offered the Swedes the kind of
attack the tall and sturdy women were best equipped to defend.
The failure here was not Sweden’s to play
more adventurous soccer. It was the Americans’ to play blithely into the
trap that had obviously been set for them. Because it was on a
counterattack that Sweden went ahead in the 61st minute, when Stina
Blackstenius was dispatched and scampered away. And were it not for a
fluky break in the 77th minute — when a ball fell fortuitously for Alex
Morgan off the face of an opponent who didn’t properly read a high ball
headed on by Crystal Dunn — the game might well have been lost in
regulation. Which is to say nothing of the foul on Kosovare Asllani the
Swedes claimed, but weren’t awarded, earlier on that sequence, which
caused them to switch off on the play.
And lest we forget, Lotta Schelin’s disallowed goal in extra time for Sweden had more merit
than Carli Lloyd’s disallowed goal for the U.S. a minute earlier —
although both probably should have stood. On balance, the Americans
probably can’t complain much about their lot.
Were they the better team? Certainly. Did they have some divine right to win it for having played the more majestic soccer? No.
In the end, the Americans failed to convert
all of that possession deep in Sweden’s half into goals. Lloyd had an
off-day and Morgan mostly found herself crowded out in the box. Heath’s
many crosses seldom found a recipient. And Pugh and Dunn’s runs were
lost on their teammates. There were no overlaps. No useful through
balls. No ideas.
Soccer is a simple game. The objective is to
put the ball in the net more often than the other team. If you fail to
do that, you’re entitled to nothing at all, no matter how negatively the
other team might have achieved its result.
When confronted with Solo’s comments, Sundhage wasted little time on them. “We won,” she said.
Indeed, the Swedes did. And, for their savvy game plan, deservedly so.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
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