Marta, the five-times world player of the year, missed Brazil’s fifth penalty of the shootout but Brazilian goalkeeper Barbara saved Australia’s last spot kick from Katrina Gorry to take it to sudden death.
Advertisement
It started with a loss, of game and dignity, from a classless goalie who never should have been on this Olympic team.
“Sweden dropped off”, Solo said when asked why she called them “cowards”.
That led to the U.S. women’s football team goalkeeper being taunted with cries of “Zika” at every goal kick by Brazilian fans during the tournament. We showed a lot of heart.
American women’s team goalkeeper Hope Solo Solo was also slammed by USA media for her comments.
Solo ripped into the Swedes, saying they had played like “a bunch of cowards”.
The often-controversial Solo drew fire with her outspoken remarks at the Rio Olympics, which International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams agreed were “disappointing”. “I thought we had many opportunities on the goal”, she told Sports Illustrated. “You saw us give everything we had”.
“But they won. They’re moving on, and we’re going home”. “It falls I think into the category of sportsmanship. We would not stop them expressing their opinion within boundaries”.
Going up against their former coach, Pia Sundhage, the US women failed to connect on several quality chances in the first half. “I’m going to Rio”.
Solo matched Lindahl’s save to open the shootout with one of her own, Linda Sembrant unable to convert.
The sad part is that when the storm around Solo dies down, she manages to set it alight again with nonsense like demeaning Sweden following its extraordinary victory or making a joke of Zika and then rolling into Brazil and claiming she’d been seriously concerned about it. “Zika!” almost every time she touched the ball in the opening match against New Zealand.
The 2-2 tie against Colombia in the group stage also found Solo in the headlines after she made two uncharacteristic errors.
Then, Solo waved to the referee, stepped to one side, and began to remove her gloves. 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.
If they were handing out a gold medal for the biggest dummy spit in Rio, USA women’s football star Hope Solo would be standing at the top of the podium. It was not to be. Nearly immediately thereafter, Sweden’s Lotta Schelin beat Solo, only to have the ref wave off her goal on a dubious offside call.
“They tried to counter with long balls. It was a combative game, a physical game”. They had a game plan and they stuck to it. “This evening Sweden figured out how to beat us”. Solo called out Sweden as “cowards” for playing a defensive game, and declared the United States the better team, despite losing.
Advertisement
“And they’re winning all the time”.
