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

Beijing. We had never lost to Japan, but we knew how dangerous the Japanese were. Just as we took the field for warm-ups, the other semifinal game was ending. In a major upset, Brazil had manhandled Germany, 4–1, ousting the tournament favorite and exacting revenge for their World Cup loss.

When our semifinal began, Japan seemed intent on continuing the day of upsets. Japan jumped out in front in the first half, scoring on a corner kick. We tied the game late in the first half on an attack that I started with a long goal kick. Just before the half we scored again, and never relinquished the lead. The final was 4–2.

I had played fine for the first five games of the tournament, but I hadn’t been required to be a game-changer. In every major tournament, a team needs its goalkeeper to come up huge in at least one game, and that hadn’t happened yet. The game hadn’t called my name. But I would be ready when it did. We were in the gold-medal game. And our opponent was Brazil.

VII.

In recent months, I had returned to my comfortable spot at the back of the bus, where I could zone out and listen to music. On the ride to Workers Stadium on August 21, I looked out the window and thought about my yearlong odyssey from a stadium in Hangzhou to a stadium in Beijing. I felt so strong, both mentally and physically prepared. I knew I had done everything to be ready for this moment. We pulled up to the stadium, and when I stood to get up off the bus, I looked over at Carli. Our eyes locked. We smiled a sort of half-smile that spoke everything that needed to be said. We were at once relaxed and confident. “Well,” I said. “Here we go.”

Carli nodded. “Here we go.”

BRAZIL’S STARS, CRISTIANE and Marta, were determined from the start to pick up where they left off in the World Cup, firing shot after shot at me. I dove to smother shots, punched balls out, collided with players. The game was calling my name. In the seventy-second minute, Marta got behind two of our defenders and into the six-yard box. She shot at me from point blank range: as she came at me I read that she would hit the ball left to the far post, but she quickly changed and blasted the ball to my right. I had to react instantaneously, throwing up my arm to block the rocket shot, which felt like it would take off my arm. The force of the blow was so loud some observers thought the ball had struck the post. No, it had struck me, ricocheting out of danger. Marta thrust her hands up in frustration.

Regulation time ended in a 0–0 draw. We would play two fifteen-minute halves of overtime. Six minutes into overtime, Carli had a give-and-go with Amy Rodriguez and blasted a left-footed shot from the top of the box. It landed in the corner of the goal. We led 1–0.

“Hell yeah!” I said, at the far end of the field, but refrained from celebrating. I knew we still had twenty-four minutes to play and Brazil was relentless.

Marta beat our defense again and sailed a ball past me, just over the crossbar. Time seemed to have stopped, stretching out into the muggy Chinese night. Ball after ball was slotted through without anyone touching them. I pushed balls out with my fingertips, with one hand. We had been playing forever, an eternal battle, and still the whistle didn’t come. As the seconds ticked down, Brazil earned corner after corner. Finally I saw the referee glance at her watch. It had to be time.

Renata Costa lofted another corner. Cristiane got her head on it. I made the save.

And then the whistle blew.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Pretty Damn Sweet

I sprinted out of the goal toward Carli and threw my arms around her. I wasn’t thinking about the irony, the two ostracized teammates with the winning goal and the shutout. I just wanted to hug my friend in celebration. A celebration I’d been awaiting my entire life. We had our gold medal.

We collapsed onto each other, my teammates and I, a jumble of cleats and tears and joy and sweat. Pia—our coach, who had believed in me—lifted me off the ground in a bear hug. Brazil’s Cristiane sat on the field, distraught, wailing in despair. Their goalkeeper, Barbara, lay prone across the face of the goal, weeping. Marta walked in small circles, looking stunned and confused.

We had done it. Just us. This unrecognized group that had lost its star player in July. We had won a major championship. We had done it without Mia Hamm, without Brandi Chastain, without Julie Foudy, without Kristine Lilly. We had stepped out of the shadow.

There was someone else I needed to share the moment with, someone who was back home in Washington, cradling his infant son, Johnny. Only Marcus really knew how shattered and vulnerable I had been at the World Cup. Before this game, I felt sure I would need to talk to him, so I had wrapped my cell phone in a white towel and placed it with my water bottle next to the goal. Marcus’s number was pre-dialed. I ran back to the goal from the celebration, retrieved my phone, and punched SEND.

“We did it! We did it!” I shouted into the phone over the noise. “We fucking did it!”

We did it. My teammates and I. Marcus and I.

“Hell yes!” he shouted back. “I’m so proud of you, Hope.”

We were both laughing and crying, barely able to hear each other over the noise. “This is for dad,” he said over and over.

When we were little kids, alone and scared in that Seattle police station, when we were fighting and clawing at each other in the house on Hoxie, who imagined there would be an Olympic gold medal to bind us?

In my white towel,