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

back, but I felt strongly that the number 1 jersey should be worn by the starting goalkeeper. It was soccer tradition. And it represented a fresh start.

I told Aaron Heifetz and Cheryl Bailey that I wanted to make the change before the roster was sent to FIFA, and after a little hesitation, the change was made. My goalkeeper coach, Phil, approved—he told me that I had earned the number 1. A few teammates asked me what was up with changing my jersey, and I told them the truth: I wanted to wear the traditional goalkeeper number. The people it affected the most were my family members, because they all now had a collection of obsolete number 18 jerseys.

Secure in my place on the team, I started to make plans for my loved ones to come to the Olympics. Asking anyone to make two trips to China in the space of one year was a big request, and I had already received so much support for the World Cup that I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was grateful for the support I was receiving—my mom was coming and my grandparents were committed. They were getting older, and international travel was becoming more difficult. Grandma said it might be the last time that she left “God’s second paradise.”

Marcus wasn’t going to come, but he had the best reason of all to skip the Olympics. He and his fiancée, Debbie, had become parents of a baby boy in April. Johnny was named for my father—and he had been conceived soon after my father’s death and was born a few days after my father’s birthday and a day after my grandpa’s birthday. His birth brought joy and a sense of renewal to all of us.

Our last game before the Olympics was against Brazil in San Diego. Brazil, as usual, had struggled between the major tournaments and had been the last team to qualify for the Olympics. It was a warm night in July and the stadium was packed with enthusiastic fans. In the first half, Abby and Andréia Rosa went into a hard tackle and Abby never got up. She was flat on the ground and lifted her head to signal to the bench for help. I had never seen Abby in that kind of pain—not even when she had her head split open against North Korea.

The game came to a stop. Pearcie ran over to Abby. The paramedics lifted Abby onto a stretcher and placed an Aircast on her leg. She was taken to the hospital while the game continued. We won the game 1–0, but everyone on the team was in shock.

We found out after the game that Abby had broken both her left tibia and fibula. That’s exactly what Abby—completely lucid—had told Pearcie on the field.

Abby—our force, our scoring threat—was out of the Olympics. We were going to have to win without her. Abby and I still didn’t have much of a relationship, but we had reached a kind of détente: we agreed to disagree about what had happened in China. We were both key to the team’s success: the goal scorer and the goal stopper. I couldn’t imagine our team without her.

Some of the players were staying the night in San Diego while the rest of us were heading back to Los Angeles. I wanted to go to the hospital to see Abby, to let her know how important I thought she was to the team, to tell her that I wished nothing but the best for her. But the bus back to Los Angeles was waiting, so I left Abby behind in the hospital, where she had surgery to place a titanium rod and screws in her leg. I sent her a text.

Hey Abby, thinking of you.

A few days later, we boarded the plane headed for Beijing. We hadn’t lost a game since Pia took over—our last loss was the World Cup game against Brazil. I looked around at my teammates. There was no Lil, no Abby. Bri was only there as an alternate. Shannon Boxx, who had made it clear through comments to the press that she didn’t want to revisit the past and just wanted to play soccer, was all business. Kate Markgraf, Pearcie, and I had formed a working relationship as the core of the defense. Aly and I dealt with each other, but our relationship was never going to be the same, and we both knew it. Cat wasn’t there—she was injured. Tina had just had baby Mya. We were a completely different team. The times had indeed changed.

V.

God damn it, what was wrong with me? Why was I playing like this? I had never felt this nervous. The Olympics had started just five minutes ago, and I had already let in two goals. We had barely started our Olympic journey, and we were already facing elimination. If we were boxers, we might have been TKO’d.

We were playing our first game against Norway in Qinhuangdao, a seaport east of Beijing. We had arrived before most of the rest of Team USA, landing in China two weeks before our first game, which gave us time to adjust to the heat and the “haze,” as the Chinese euphemistically called the ever-present smog. But the long acclimation period didn’t do anything to calm my nerves. I had never been more scared to play a soccer game.

I knew how many people wanted me to fail. Sure, there were others who supported me, but I was keenly aware of how many were rooting against me and how important it was to prove them wrong. By the morning of our first game, August 6—two days before Opening Ceremonies—the accumulated weight of the past eleven months had settled in the pit of my stomach.

When I took the field, I had too much adrenaline rushing through me. In the first two minutes, I made a terrible decision. Lori Chalupny was marking the Norwegian captain, and was in perfect position. But