Mean Girls Let Hope Solo Back in the Sorority

By: Laurie | December 6th, 2007

Good news for those of us who prefer good soccer over catty backstabbing. (And I know that’s at least 27% of our Offside readers.)

Hope Solo is back.

You remember Hope. The passionately outspoken goalkeeper who was rather passionately outspokenly pissed off after watching her team lose 0-4 against Brazil in the Women’s World Cup when Coach of Genius Greg Ryan benched her for no reason? And who was then ostracized by the mean girls on the team like Kristine Lilly and Abby Wambach?

Seriously, they almost made her fly back on her own plane, and then engaged in a snarky, queen bee public cold shoulder worthy of any eighth grade cheerleading squad.

But all is becoming right again in the world of US Women’s soccer, because Ryan has been fired and Hope is back on the team.

CARSON, Calif. (AP) – 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.

Confession here: Yes, I’m completely biased towards Hope Solo because she’s a Washington girl and she spent a season with the women’s arm of my favorite French team, Olympique Lyonnais. But I’d feel the same sympathy for her if she were from…from Texas and had played in Italy.

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s a video that shows what she brings to the team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDc15pdVLO4

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Category: North America, World Football

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Laurie

Oh, Mike, if only I could claim it as my own. I borrowed it from Longshoe over at Who Ate All the Cupcakes. He did a post as the events were unfolding with a Mean Girls movie poster.

I kept wishing somebody would take that picture, blow it up to poster size and photoshop Kristine Lilly's and Abby Wambach's heads on it for the US vs. Mexico games, but alas, I don't think it happened.
Mike

I just linked to your blog on my blog http://startingeleven.blogspot.... Love your headline: Mean Girls -- awesome
Brian

I never understood why her comments caused such a frenzy. I mean, sure, she should have been more circumspect, but she was also right. And who's more culpable, really, the person who complains about the bad decision or the person who makes it in the first place? Following the reaction to her comments at the time, you would have come away with the idea that the team lost because she complained about the coach after the game.
elle

she's so bad ass. they got rid of greg ryan, now can they please get rid of scurry and lilly, I feel old just watching them.
Charlton Heston

Now all we do is have to get Lilly and Abby banned from the WNT.
bfos7215

Until those biatches admit what they did to Hope was wrong and despicable, I could give a rat's ass about this team.
James

Although the music would make any man listening question their sexuality... seeing Hope fixes all of that.
Laurie

Shane, if I were inclined in that direction (which I am emphatically not), I would agree with you.
Shane

Hope Solo's hot.