“I thought that we played a courageous game”, Solo reportedly said.
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The USA’s star striker Alex Morgan and substitute Christen Press missed penalties before Lisa Dahlkvist converted the winning spot-kick despite Solo’s best efforts to put her off by changing gloves to delay Dahlkvist’s effort.
Solo went on to say that she does not believe Sweden will make it through the tournament. And goalkeeper Hope Solo was seething over Sweden’s tactics, calling the team “a bunch of cowards”.
Delran, New Jersey’s Carli Lloyd and her US soccer teammates face their first knockout round game midday Thursday as the No. 1 team in the world sets its eyes on a fourth-straight Olympic gold.
Sweden coach Pia Sundhage, who coached the USA for five years and led the team to gold medals at both the Beijing and London Olympics, quipped: “It’s OK to be a coward if you win”.
Hope Solo didn’t exactly buy into the spirit of the Olympic Games last night after the United States of America goalkeeper branded opponents Sweden “a bunch of cowards”. “You have to let them process it, but teenage girls are pretty resilient and it doesn’t take them that long to recover”.
So much for the Olympic spirit of fair play and sportsmanship. The onus was on the United States to crack the unbending resistance and open up the match. They didn’t want to open play. “I’ve watched all the games so far up until today and they didn’t seem to have that “something” you would normally expect of a team at that level. We had that style of play when Pia was our coach”. “I thought that we had many opportunities on goal”. The American had won gold four times previously and silver once.
Solo, who has endured near-constant taunts of “Zika!”.
US equalized 13 minutes from time, Alex Morgan taking advantage of a loose ball in Sweden’s area that ricocheted off the face of defender Jessica Samuelsson to score past Swedish keeper Hedvig Lindahl. Sundhage was a player on the Sweden team that fell 2-1 to the Americans. A week before the startling loss, the two time Olympic gold medalist defended her comments, and said she was “focused” on winning. Her game plan was a defensive one: Have the Swedish players sit deep in their own half and jam up the midfield in a 4-5-1 formation; then, catch the attack-oriented USWNT pushing too high and break past them with a quick counterattack. Perhaps American dominance is waning, although that’s a precipitous fall from last summer’s World Cup triumph.
Monica Puig, of Puerto Rico, celebrates after defeating Petra Kvitova, of the Czech Republic, during their semi-final round match at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 12, 2016. Going home without the Olympic title Ellis so badly wanted to pair with the World Cup title her team won last summer. As a result, Solo was booed by Brazilian fans almost every time she touched the ball throughout the Americans’ four Olympic games.
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When Pugh was forced to leave the field, limping noticeably, in the 114th minute, she was replaced by Lindsey Horan, her fellow Coloradan.
