Solo by Hope Solo (best free ereader .TXT) 📕

officer, Aaron Heifetz, stuck close to my side as I walked past reporters and the ESPN cameras. I was almost to the bus when a woman I didn’t recognize leaned over the rail and asked me a question.

Heifetz answered for me. “She didn’t play,” he barked. “You only want to talk to people who played the game.”

I stopped walking. I wasn’t allowed to speak for myself? “Heif, this is my decision,” I said, and turned toward the woman with the microphone.

“It was the wrong decision,” I said. “And I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that. There’s no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is, it’s not 2004 anymore. It’s not 2004. It’s 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can’t live by big names. You can’t live in the past. It doesn’t matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold medal game three years ago. Now is what matters, and that’s what I think.”

I turned away and headed toward the bus. “Don’t ever tell me what interviews I can do,” I said to Heifetz.

He was furious. He told me he was probably going to lose his job. He went back and reprimanded the reporter for hounding me and shepherded Bri past reporters without stopping.

I walked to the back of the team bus and sat down near my close friends. The mood was grim, the conversation muted. Players were exhausted, angry, in shock. “I just did an interview,” I said to Carli, Tina, and whoever was nearby.

“What did you say?”

“I said I believed I would have made those saves.”

“Uh oh, Hope,” someone said with a laugh.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Carli said.

“I don’t know if it is,” I said and put my earbuds in.

It didn’t feel like anything was fine. Our team had just suffered its worst World Cup loss in history, our first loss in almost three years. In ninety minutes, everything we had worked for had been erased.

The bus pulled out of the stadium and took us to our Hangzhou hotel. The plan was to eat and have a quick visit with our families before the long bus ride back to Shanghai. While we were in the lobby, talking in subdued voices, the Brazilian team and their supporters came in. They were at the same hotel, a boneheaded move on the part of the Chinese organizers. The Brazilians danced around the lobby, doing the samba, beating their drums, snaking through the small groups of American supporters. You could feel the tension rise—I wouldn’t have been surprised if a fistfight broke out. Brazil was celebrating in that uniquely Brazilian way, but they were rubbing our faces in the loss.

Soon we got back on the bus to ride through the night to Shanghai, where we would play a third-place game in a few days. Some people slept. Others checked their phones, talking to family back in the States, where it was still morning.

Carli texted with her trainer, James, in New Jersey. She turned to me. “Hope, James says this is blowing up back home,” she said. “It’s all over the news.”

“What is?”

“Your interview.”

For the rest of the ride, I stared out the window, watching the lights rush past in the dark night, replaying my words in my head. I had said what I thought about Greg’s decision—I assumed he had told the press his reasoning for starting Bri. I felt justified in stating my point of view.

Once we got to the Westin Shanghai, Carli and Marci Miller—whom I roomed with in Shanghai—huddled with me in front of the computer. We found the interview on ESPN and watched it. “It’s not so bad, is it?” I asked them. “That was meant for Greg, not Bri.”

Carli and Marci hesitantly agreed. No, it wasn’t horrible.

“Well,” I said, trying to laugh, “I guess it’s only a matter of time before I get hell from the older players.”

Right then, my phone rang. I looked at Carli and Marci. “I guarantee you this is them,” I said as I picked up.

It was Lil. She said the veterans wanted to talk to me and asked if I would come to their room.

II.

I walked down the hall. By now it was after midnight. I pushed open the door of Lil’s room and saw the veterans grimly waiting for me. Kate Markgraf stood by the door. Lil, Shannon Boxx, Christie Rampone, Abby, and Bri sat on the beds. I walked across to the other side of the room and leaned against the wall.

They had seen the interview. I was told that I had, in their opinion, broken a team code.

“Well, I’m a professional athlete—of course I believe I could make a difference on the field,” I said. “Just like you guys do,” I added. “We should all believe we can make a difference or else why are we professional athletes?”

Kate Markgraf turned on me. “I can’t even fucking look at you,” she said. “Who the fuck do you think you are? I can’t even be in the same room with you.”

She walked out and slammed the door behind her. Wow, I thought, that seems overly dramatic.

Now there were five. I stood and listened as each had her say. They told me that you don’t throw a teammate under the bus, that I had broken the code, that I had betrayed the team. I was told that I had ruined everything this team was built on, and that I had torn down what Julie Foudy and Mia and Lil and all the players who paved the way for us had created.

“This isn’t about Julie Foudy or anyone else from the past,” I said. “This is about our team. I would never do anything to hurt Bri. I have so much respect for Bri. But as a professional athlete, I’m confident that I would have made a difference in the game. I believe in myself enough to know that I would have