Sep 27 2007
That’s What You Get for Benching Hope
When I heard yesterday that USA women’s soccer head coach Greg Ryan decided to bench Hope Solo in favor of Brianna Scurry for the FIFA Women’s World Cup semifinal match against Brazil, my immediate reaction was, “What!? Why!?”
Maybe it’s because there’s a saying in hockey that you stay with a hot goalie. (What? Raleigh’s a hockey town, people.) There was no hotter goalkeeper in the Women’s World Cup than Solo. She had a three-game scoreless streak going into this semifinal. She had built up some chemistry with her backline, whereas Scurry would be coming in cold. I don’t care that Scurry had performed well in big games in the past. You don’t ditch the girl that brought you to the dance.
Result? USA 0-4 Brazil. If Scurry was put in there to stop Marta from scoring, she made a total mess of it.
This reminds me of the time when Wade Phillips, then head coach of the Buffalo Bills, benched quarterback Doug Flutie, who led the Bills to a 10-5 record and a Wild Card berth, in favor of Rob Johnson. End result? The Music City Miracle, bitches. It was a karmic beatdown of epic proportions.
Well, Brianna Scurry is the new Rob Johnson. This move created unnecessary chaos in the locker room and in the media. Ryan will be questioned endlessly for this decision. He ought to get Grady Littled for it.
By the way, that second yellow on Shannon Boxx was indeed a shit call, but after weeks of watching Premier League matches, I’m starting to develop an immunity to such things. Besides, the game was already lost the moment Hope was left on the bench.
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I have to agree. And I don’t blame Brianna Scurry; it isn’t her fault. The blame lies with Greg Ryan. He said he wanted her to play because of how well she handled Brasil the last time they played - but that was something like three years ago!
If Ryan really thought Scurry was going to be in goal for an important game like this, he should have started her in more games. Scurry’s only played in a handful of games these past few years, so she wasn’t a good replacement for Hope Solo, no matter how good she might have looked in practice recently.
Seriously, who changes goalies and disrupts team chemistry right before an important game, just because a player had played well against a particular team THREE F____NG YEARS AGO! Insanity.
This is a problem with American soccer coaches. They lack the kind of deep seated instincts that comes with a background in a culture that takes soccer seriously. Lacking these instincts, they can’t avoid the temptation to tinker. See the USA men’s team for other examples of this weakness. Soccer ain’t like gridiron. It’s better to undercoach than overcoach, if you are going to go to extremes.
So does that make Rafa Benitez an American at heart?
Perhaps, but I’d trust Rafa’s instincts over that of any American coach.
There’s a lot about Ryan I don’t like. Our back line was a little suspect against strong attacks like N. Korea’s and Brazil’s. We were horrible at holding possession, and we had issues scoring when we didn’t get set pieces. Ryan needs to get the team to work on possession more…
I don’t know if it’s too early to start up the “fire Ryan” bandwagon, but I do know that I watched a team basically quit on Ryan after Osborne’s own goal, only generating two real scoring chances from that point on. And I do know that team chemistry - or at least the way the team relates to Ryan - will never be the same.
That was epic stupidity benching Hope Solo. It’s one thing if you are going to rotate goalkeepers on a regular basis but it’s another to pick a second string keeper who has rode the bench for three months over a healthy keeper who just posted 3 shutouts. The move had the entire backline thinking ‘Huh?’ and it showed on the field. It’s a classic example of an overthinking coach.
i love marilyn!