This rant is really unfortunate, because as a female it’s already hard enough to get any respect from men in the world of sports, so for me to even speak negatively about another woman who has worked so hard and accomplished so much is upsetting. However, it also has to be said.
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Dear Hope Solo,
You will never be Brandi Chastain. Ever. On or off the Field.
Love,
Me
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It all started with the following tweets from @HopeSolo:
2 bad we cant have commentators who better represent the team & know more about the game @brandichastain!
Lay off commentating about defending and gking [goalkeeping] until you get more educated @brandichastain. the game has changed from a decade ago.
Its important 2 our fans 2 enjoy the spirit of the olympics. Its not possible when sum1 on air is saying that a player is the worst defender.
I feel bad 4 our fans that have 2 push mute, especially bc @arlowhite is fantastic. @brandichastain should be helping 2 grow the sport.
The fact that she included Brandi’s twitter handle in the tweet meant that she had every intention of Brandi reading them. So for Hope to backtrack and say that she wasn’t trying to start a fight or cause any trouble is a flat out lie. Brandi is now an analyst. She gets paid to be an impartial critic of the game that is going on in front of her. She is not getting paid to sit there and praise the US women’s soccer team. If she did that, she wouldn’t be doing her job correctly.
Hope had mentioned in her (coincidentally just released) memoir, “Everything Brandi says seems to have a direct correlation to her playing days, so many years ago. “When I played with Carla Overbeck … “she will say again and again. I’m not sure that many of our new fans have any idea who Carla Overbeck was.”
Well no offense to the current roster, but I am familiar with Hope Solo for her media controversies, Abby Wambach because I saw a drunken video of her on TMZ, and Alex Morgan, true player. I don’t know one other player on the team. I’m sorry, but this team does not have the magic of that 1999 team. I don’t know the team, I don’t find myself wanting to root for any of the girls in particular, I now cannot stand our goalie, and the only reason I watched them in the Olympics is because it was the Olympics. I don’t care what other matches they are in. Yet when it was Hamm, Chastain, Foudy, Akers, Lilly, Overbeck, Scurry, and others, I would watch them every time I could find them on tv. That team was refreshing.
I found myself following Hope’s post-Olympic media tour just to hear what else she would spew out of her mouth, and while listening to her at points I found myself dumbfounded. While on Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy said that he had to ask about the whole Brandi Chastain situation and what was going on. Solo’s retort was, “Who?” I understand it was her attempt at a joke, but it was incredibly unfunny.
While there’s no doubt that Mia Hamm is the best female soccer player the US has ever seen, Brandi single handedly put women’s soccer on the map for thousands of people with her game winning penalty kick in the 1999 World Cup. That moment will NEVER be recreated, and honestly when it comes to women’s soccer in the US, I would put all my money on it never being topped. Granted, two entirely different positions in guard and goalie, but Hope Solo will NEVER have a moment like that. She barely made it out of the Olympics, letting 3 goals go by her in the game against Canada, but was bailed out by the brilliant Alex Morgan.
Bottom line is that 1999 team, and that about 10 year span including years before and after that World Cup, really gave women’s soccer its life. They paved the way so these snotty obnoxious brats, who don’t even know they have everything handed to them, could play the game they love and get the notoriety they are. As Hope had mentioned in one of her tweets, perhaps she should heed her own advice and help to grow the sport. I, for one, have no intention to watch women’s soccer again until Hope Solo is not the women in goal anymore.
End of bitter, hateful rant. But this also has to be said: Brandi is clearly one of my favorite athletes, and thanks to my job I have gotten to meet her a couple of times now. She is hands down the absolute nicest person I ever met in my life. I have met and now have relationships with some of the greatest athletes in the world, yet when I knew I was going to meet her I was incredibly nervous. I flat out dorked out. I stuttered, I know I told her dumb stories, and my boss even threw me under the bus telling her how big of a fan I was. But Brandi was still totally cool. She laughed, hugged me, and made me feel like way less of the idiot that I knew I came across as. She’s awesome.
That’s why I get so mad at situations like this. For Hope Solo to come out and say negative things against someone who has impacted a lot of young women’s lives is wrong and pointless. Just play your game, and you be a role model for other young women.