Consider with me for a moment the following scenario...
A physician is the best in the world at what she does. Let's say she's a hand surgeon. She's literally the best to ever do hand surgery. The surgeons that trained her willingly admit she's better than they are, the surgeons that mentored her are sort of in awe of her ability with a scalpel, and her peers are willing to admit that she is unlike any other.
She reattaches severed hands, fingers, makes impossible the possible, innovates in the field, and creates a surgical technique that re-routes the hand muscles so that people who lose their thumbs can have their index or middle fingers turned into thumbs. She's THAT good.
She travels the world being brilliant. As a member of the humanitarian envoy, she goes to all the places that have been ravaged by wars started in the name of destroying terrorism, and repairs the hands of children and adults alike. She's a shining beacon of light for her skills.
BUT..... she's not the nicest person in the world. She's sort of an introvert. She will allow people to be trained with her but she's not going to hold any hands or without any punches. If your technique is trash, she'll tell you. She'll openly tell another surgeon's patients that they are better off waiting the 1.5 years to get on her schedule because she the best. And in fact.....she's right. She is the best.
Her personal life isn't nearly as together as her public life is. She's in a marriage that some don't understand. She says harsh things sometimes, speaks without thinking. She's not the easiest person by a mile to deal with or understand, but she's a surgeon and who really understands them anyway.
A treaty is signed. There won't be any more war for quite a while. As time passes, she continues to be who she is and the head of the envoy she travels with on humanitarian missions to war torn places grows weary of her as the number of war torn places dwindles. They're tired of dealing with "the best." On their last trip to a war torn country, she divulges that a surgical team assisting them with this mission is incompetent and slowed her down during a press conference. Its the last straw. Though she can do alone what it takes a team to do and she can do it faster than any team can do it, the head of the humanitarian missions group decides they no longer want to take her. They make a formal announcement to such. They never disparage her skill but they announce that she is no longer going to be on the humanitarian teams. She continues to practice at her local university, continues being the best.
What would you think? Is this okay? Is it okay to do this?
The above scenario is exactly what happened to Hope Solo. While she is the best to ever play the game as a goalkeeper, she's not necessarily the nicest person. I don't actually know her but I do know a few things.
I know that while she was the ABSOLUTE BEST chance the USWNT had for winning the Women's World Cup in 2015, the Soccer federation was willing to stand by her. They gave her a 30 day suspension for letting her husband drive a federation van while intoxicated. They swept her domestic violence charge under the rug. They closed ranks and stuck together. They also won the World Cup.
After we won the WWC, we had the Olympics. She was still the ABSOLUTE BEST chance the USWNT had for winning Gold. That domestic violence case had been thrown out and re-opened but they carried forward with Solo. They made a HUGE deal of Hope getting her 100th shutout in July. She's the first national team goalkeeper in the WORLD to ever play 100 games without allowing a goal. She's shut out 29 different countries. And US Soccer made damn sure that information was front and center.
At the Olympics, we actually lost in penalties. Often times that is the fault of the goalkeeper but THIS TIME it was not.
Hope made a save. A brilliant athletic save.
One save is really all a goalkeeper can be expected to do when people are taking point blank shoots at them, which is what penalties are.
We lost because two people on the USWNT didn't score their penalties.
After losing to Sweden, who played a smart but boring strategy that allowed them to go to penalties and ultimately win the shootout, Hope called them cowards. Sweden had gotten their heads rocked against Brazil in group play when they played an open style of soccer. Generally speaking, everyone plays open soccer. The US is the best in the world at open soccer. Hope was saying it was cowardly for them to come out and not play the style of soccer that makes soccer "the beautiful game." They knew they couldn't compete because Brazil showed them that but instead of trying to, they shrunk into a shell. <--- That is what she was saying and what would have been understood if journalists reported the truth instead of going for click bait.
Following this and what are said to be "prior offenses" Hope was terminated from the USWNT. Now here in lies the issue.
TIMING
The next big matches for the USWNT are in 2019 to qualify for the WWC. The national team has a few years before that happens meaning they have a few years before they need a really well accomplished goalkeeper with international experience.
Basically....they handed down this punishment now because they no longer NEED Hope Solo. There's nothing at stake! When the WWC or the Olympics were at stake, they were willing to deal with whatever Hope did for the sake of winning. They were willing to spin the story, put up with whatever, and shut up about anything they didn't like because THEY NEEDED HER.
Now they don't need her, so they dismiss her for a small infraction. What they lack here is ethics. You can't tell me calling someone a coward is worse than the drunk driving situation BUT what was coming up within 6 months of the drunk driving situation? The Women's World Cup.
You can't tell me having a open case of domestic abuse against someone is worse than calling an opponent's team coward BUT what was coming up within 8 months of the reopening of the case? The Olympics.
You either have a problem with these bigger issues or you don't. You can't wait until its covenient for your schedule or its no longer going to hurt your chances of winning to punish someone for something you think it wrong. You either punish them when they do something wrong or you choose to let it go.
Essentially what they wanted to do was keep the amazing goalkeeper but lose the personality that is Hope Solo and I'm here to tell you the the amazing goal keeper and the personality are one and the same.
Hope Solo is one person.
The way US Soccer used her for her abilities and now wants to throw her out because she's not longer that critical linchpin for them and they not longer need her is disgusting.
They used her to get what the wanted and when they couldn't get anything else, they tossed her out. The behavior that Solo has displayed has been very questionable but what the federation has done is vile.
You don't throw people away.
No comments:
Post a Comment