What happened to the U.S. Womens World Cup team this week was sad, but pretty neat in a way.
Sad, because Coach Greg Ryan made a classic mistake, replacing his goalie for a semi-final, and he paid the appropriate price, in that the team was crunched, 4-0 by Brazil.
Pretty neat, because this is the kind of thing which happens to mens’ teams all the time, and for once it got the kind of attention we give mens’ teams.
While the 1999 cup made stars out of the U.S. team, I would hope
this cup has made stars out of women from around the world. It was sad,
back in the early 2000s, watching stars like Birgit Prinz, Kelly Smith and
Homare Sawa toiling in relative anonymity in the WUSA. When my daughter and I
watched the Atlanta Beat-San Diego Surf play-off a few years ago, we
saw more world-class full internationals on the pitch than you would
ever see from the stands for ManU and Chelsea. But the fans weren’t
told, the press didn’t notice, and the league folded. (Brianna Scurry, left, was the Atlanta goalie that day. Scurry won.)
So back to the present situation. Ryan switched out Hope Solo not
because of her play, but because of the play of her back line. The U.S.
defense was always vulnerable this year, even when they weren’t letting
in the goals. Solo was shaky in the 2-2 tie with North Korea, you can fault her on both Korean goals, but she
recovered, and she had a clean sheet in every other game she played.
If Ryan
was going to take her out, he should have done so earlier, against
Nigeria. Let Scurry play against Nigeria, and then make a decision for England. Brianna Scurry is the best women’s goalkeeper ever, and she deserved better from Ryan than what she got, 4 goals past her because of shaky teammates and a red card to Shannon Boxx, just as Hope Solo deserved better.
So Ryan has to go. But who will replace him? Who has what it takes to turn around this club and make it dominant again?
Kristine Lilly does.
Lilly was the captain of this year’s team. She’s 36. She’s a legend.
She is, in fact, the greatest player this country has ever produced. If
you like, think of her as being Lou Gehrig to Mia Hamm’s Babe Ruth.
(Michelle Akers was Christy Mathewson.) Lilly is steady. She does the hard work and doesn’t complain. She acts
like a scrub, not a star. No one in the current hierarchy of U.S.
Soccer has the reputation she has.
But by the next World Cup Kristine Lilly will be 40. She needs to move on, and this is the place for her.
Make Lilly coach and she’ll become a known star, rather than an
unknown one. An accomplished, and respected womens’ coach is what U.S.
Soccer most needs right now, even more than a World Cup title. We have
been dependent on players for too long. Star coaches are also how you
build the game. Star coaches go on Letterman. Lilly will be great on Letterman.
She’ll take some convincing, but I think she can be persuaded.
Oh, and Coach Lilly? A suggestion for game days. Get a suit. Get several. Dress well. Be the star. You can have decades in this game, you can be the face of this game. And you can sell a lot of suits.
