Solidarity

If only I had cable in my bedroom. Then I would have been able to watch the impossibly early broadcasts of the Women’s World Cup. I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t watched a single minute of live coverage, but I’m more ashamed that the only reason the World Cup has managed to break into the headlines is because of the catty dialogue coming from the locker room of the hometeam.

I don’t envy the position of any coach who must decide between the veteran and the phenom, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when the veteran’s experience is just a tick better than the phenom’s excellence.

Coach Greg Ryan thought he was making the right decision by starting Briana Scurry versus Brazil. He thought her past would prove more important than her present and she could lead her young teammates to the final. But by all accounts, her quickness and precision are waning, and she could not withstand the onslaught of a stronger Brazilian squad.

We’ll never know if Hope Solo could have done any better, but she has told everyone she would have. She chimed in to the dialogue that was already swirling around the decision, but she forgot one important adage, an adage that the youngest of athletes can recite by heart.

“There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

Critics said that Ryan’s decision to start Scurry over Solo might affect morale, and I’m sure that it did, but I would think loyalty to the whole team and its common goal would supersede loyalty to any one player. Loyalty has its place in sports, but this was not a situation that called for the rest of the team to turn in their jerseys in solidarity with Solo. Whether they agreed or not, they took the field with their other teammate, a teammate who still possesses immense talent and is still a member of the team for a reason.

I don’t believe that Solo meant to diminish the reputation of Scurry. I think her desire to win and her frustration at not being able to help her team do so clouded her judgment. In the end, it was a rookie mistake for her to speak out as vehemently as she did and that decision has cost her a role in the third place match versus Norway.

What happens with the National team from here on out waits to be seen. Whether Ryan, Solo, or Scurry return for the Olympics next summer will be hot topics, but for now there’s still one more match to be played in which the United States needs to rise above the fray.

Perhaps this is the time to follow the quiet example of the veteran.