Observations from the Couch 8.12

Three hundred and eighty-nine days, 389 days after the U.S. women's soccer team lost to Japan in the World Cup they found redemption at the Olympics by defeating the same Japan team 2-1 and winning the gold medal. The American team had played six games in sixteen days in three different cities and won the gold in front of 80,203 spectators in Wembley Stadium, home of the English national 'football' team. It was the largest crowd ever to watch a women's soccer game in Great Britain or at any Olympics games. The win even earned them a tweet from President Barack Obama who signs his personal tweets bo.

My MVP of the team has to be goalkeeper Hope Solo and it has nothing to do with her cute butt. At one point in the tournament Solo, arguably the best keeper the team has ever had, strung together 368 minutes of shutout soccer in the net. Solo was also one of only three women at the Olympics to play every minute of every game for her country and allowed only six goals doing it. She came through for the team when the only options available were gold medal or failure. She now has two Olympic gold medals and a Golden Glove award as the best goalie at last years World Cup.

The team will play a series of exhibition games this fall but what comes after that is anybody's guess because both the player's association's and coach Pia Sundhage's contracts run out at the end of this year. With no major international competition until the 2015 World Cup and no major women's professional league in the U.S. it will be hard to keep the team together in its current form. Seven of the eleven starters are currently listed on the roster as having no club affiliation, none of Japan's were listed that way, so you can't blame any of them for going overseas to play at a high level.

Defender Heather Mitts, who is 34 and has three Olympic gold medals, announced her retirement after the game Friday. Captain Christie Rampone, who is 37, a mother of two, and the only American to have played in four Olympics and four World Cups, has mentioned the possibility as well. Hope Solo, Amy LePeilbet, Carli Lloyd, Shannon Boxx and Abby Wambach are also all over the age of thirty. Still it's a deep team with Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux, Lauren Cheney, Tobin Heath and Kelley O’Hara are all under the age of 25 and the NCAA brimming with prospects.

Last year's World Cup and this Olympics showed how the rest of the world has caught the U.S. in women's soccer, a sport the team has owned from its birth. Japan, France, and Canada all had awesome tournaments but in the end London also proved something else. Once again the Americans are at the pinnacle and the team to beat in women's soccer.

"We filled Wembley Stadium, and you're telling me there is no league to play in?" Solo said after the game. Seems what Forbes Magazine called "the most compelling team in American sports" deserves at least that.

Observations from the Couch 7.31, Updates

With a win in the 4x200 freestyle relay American swimmer Michael Phelps became the most decorated athlete in Olympic history. His 19^th medal surpassed the 18 of Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina as he broke one of those sports records that will never be broken. For the record Phelps currently has 15 gold, 2 silver, and 2 bronze medals and he still has three races to go in London. This is one Olympic moment that deserves a drink and I shall have one.

In all fairness to Hope Solo I thought I should mention that she is far from the only athlete in London who needs to think before they talk. Before the games even began Kobe Bryant announced to the world that this Olympics' edition of the U.S. men's basketball team was better than even the original "dream team." That was the 1992 Olympic team which was the first made up of NBA players and has sometimes been called the best sports team of any kind ever assembled. To answer Kobe I'll just throw out a few names from that team. Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, and David Robinson. They won every game with the wins ranging from a 32 point win in the gold medal game against Croatia to a 68 point opening game win over Angola.

Hope Solo threw a shutout today, her second in three games, as the U.S. women defeated North Korea 1-0 in front of 30,000, evidently no empty seats at this game. The American women swept the opening round of the tournament and now play New Zealand on Friday. It is the first time in Olympic history the U.S. team has swept its group.

The U.S. women's field hockey team stunned the 2^nd in the world ranked Argentina today by a 1-0 score. It was a repeat of the Pan American Games where the U.S. earned an Olympic spot by defeating Argentina. Before that loss Aregentina had not lost at the Pan Am Games in 25 years. The U.S. is ranked 10^th in the world and will face Australia on Thursday. The win keeps alive hopes for a medal after the American team lost its opening game.

In a totally different sporting area the Penn State football team  began practice today for its first season since 1965 without Joe Paterno as head coach. The team was greeted by an early morning rally attended by thousands of fans. Also the University announced it would loan the Athletic Department $60 million to pay its NCAA fine. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbitt continues to tell anybody that will listen that no tax dollars will be used to pay the fine. This is easy to believe when you consider that under Corbitt the state has cut education funding to almost nothing at all.

And than there are the Phillies. Can you say fire sale?

Observations from the Couch 7.29

U.S. Soccer starting goalie Hope Solo is one of my favorite players in any sport at any time but when she created a mini-firestorm by criticizing NBC analyst and former player Brandi Chastain on Twitter yesterday she screwed up (Hope Solo slams Brandi Chastain). The last thing a team playing at this level needs is drama because drama becomes distraction which becomes an excuse for defeat.

Chastain  played on teams that won two Women's World Cups and two Olympic championships, teams that gave birth to women's soccer as an international sport. It should be remembered that women didn't have a world cup until 1991 or play soccer in the Olympics until 1996. If not for Chastain and her teammates it's quite possible Solo would not be playing on TV at all.  But she doesn't need to thank the players that came before her, she doesn't even need to like them, she does need to respect what they did and should have just shutit. She should have taken a cue from teammate Abby Wambach who took a punch to the face against Colombia and quickly put it behind her.

After a bad Flyers loss in the past season's Stanley Cup playoffs Sarah Baicker, the Flyers editor for Comcast SportsNet Philly, tweeted
"There's a fine line between swagger (good) and arrogance (bad)."

Just another lesson some of us never learn. What? Oh shuit,
this wasn't about me ... 

What did Chastain say that sparked the whole controversy? "Rachel Buehler with the giveaway there. As a defender, your responsibilities are defend, win the ball, and then keep possession, and that’s something Rachel Buehler needs to improve on during this tournament." Seriously, that was it. Chastain made the 1996 national team as a defender,
maybe she would know, maybe that is why NBC pays her.

Finally possibly the easiest explanation for it all. Hope Solo's memoir, yes memoir, will be released next month.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 7.18, The Hope Solo Tribute edition

You could say I wanted to pass along some Hope Solo post game comments or you could say I still can't put that game behind me. Both might be true but the real reason is that I wanted to use this photo again. The video under it is from the Nike Women "Make Yourself" campaign which was shot by Annie Leibovitz. The quotes below that were posted on the US Soccer website immediately following the game.

From Hope Solo

Link

On the disappointment of the result:
“We lost to a great team, we really did. Japan is a team that I’ve always had a lot of respect for, and I truly believe that something bigger was pulling for this team. As much as I’ve always wanted this, if there was any other team I could give this to it would have to be Japan. I’m happy for them and they do deserve it.”

On missing out on a World Cup title:
“This is something everybody’s wanted their entire lives. I’m realistic. It doesn’t always go your way. I felt like it was going to go our way this entire time and I felt like this was our tournament to win. I think we played great soccer tonight. I think the fans were incredibly entertained. We were attacking, we had chances on goal. It was fun to watch. It was a fun game. What can I say? Let’s just hope I can stick around for another four years so I can go after the gold.”

I know I'm hoping she can.

"Tears in the Sake," Observations from the Bar on the Women's World Cup Final

Sitting in a bar isn’t always how I spend a gorgeous sunny summer afternoon but there is a World Cup Soccer final to watch. I could think of worse ways to spend an afternoon than watching Hope Solo on six screens and drinking cold beer. The sixth Women's World Cup comes to a close as two time winning US team goes up against first time finalist Japan in Frankfurt, Germany. As a pre-game activity we were watching the Tour de France and something struck me as funny. Now I was always a big Lance Armstrong fan and watched the Tour without fail but without Armstrong honestly it's just guys riding bikes. That is until somebody tumbles and takes out half the peloton than it's excitement. But this is a day for soccer and Hope Solo, all of the 5' 10" long legged dark haired beauty of her, I mean 5' 10" keeper for the US team. Damnit I have to be serious here but it's hard because she is seriously hot. Shift to the compulsory tsunami story and how a win would be so good for the national psyche of Japan. It may be cold but to say today I totally don't care.

From Hope Solo

Solo looks like a giant tweety bird in her yellow uniform. My artistic side doesn't take this as a very auspicious start to the game as the black warm-ups looked much better. But this isn’t a style blog so I will move on to the game. The beginning reminds me of one of those games I always hated to play in with US shots peppering the goal only to clang off the post or sail over the net. In a game like this I always knew it was only a matter of time until the other team scored. Because of games like that I first developed a taste for my fingernails, alcohol came later. Dear god we are wasting chances here, not good. The first half ends with the score locked at zero. Phillies are beating the Mets 5-1 in the 8th inning I suppose it's a tradeoff. Why couldn't they play the final yesterday when the Mets handily spanked my Phils? My mystical side is beginning to worry the sports gods didn't like my tsunami comment but I was just complimented on my Penn State soccer jersey so there is that.

Finally Alex Morgan scores to give the US the lead at the 69 minute mark and now it seem the gods do love me or maybe just have a sense of humor. And than just as fast it's back to nail biting time as the clock is down to ten minutes and Japan begins to take more and more chances than finally score to tie the game and the bar becomes eerily quiet even as we are informed the US team has never lost a World Cup game in which it has scored first, 24-0-3 coming into this game. The game heads to extra time as full time ends tied at 1, I'm just glad it isn't sudden death but penalty kicks loom on the horizon.

Extra time with my nails about gone and for the first time I wish I could smoke a cigarette in this bar. Two minutes left in extra time and any goal scored now will be the latest in Women's World Cup Final history and just like that Abby Wambach scores in the 104th minute to give the US the lead and the bar erupts. Old guys are beginning to tear up now but I'm not quite sure if it's the soccer game or the fact that the Mets truly do suck this year, losing to the Phillies 8-5 today. Omfg Japan scores on a corner just after Solo spent time on the ground recovering from a hard dive and I begin to wonder if there is some drinking game for penalty shots, my mind can't take much more. Penalty shots, the most hellish thing ever invented for a sport.

By now you prob know how it ended, Japan winning in penalty shots with the US missing three of its 4 shots. Totally awesome game but one that should have never been this close. The US just blew too many early chances when they could have put the game away. That’s what they call a heartbreaking loss, enough to make me cry in my sake.

Go Phillies!