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

was hard to imagine playing in the World Cup in just a few months. That is, if our team made it to the World Cup.

On November 20, I woke up early to track the game in Italy. It was agonizing, almost as bad as the rehab session that awaited me later in the day. Our team couldn’t score, and the game went into extra time. Finally in the ninety-fourth minute, our youngest team member, Alex Morgan—who had just finished her senior year at Cal—pushed a shot past the diving Italian goalkeeper for the 1–0 victory. We still had life. But it was torture, watching from afar, unable to do anything to help. I decided to meet my team in Illinois for the final do-or-die game against Italy. Everyone was a little shocked to see the shape I was in. I had lost weight, and my arm had completely atrophied from lack of exercise.

“You need to gain some muscle,” Pia said.

“I’m trying,” I said.

The game was tense. Italy dominated much of the run of play, but Amy Rodriguez’s goal late in the first half stood up. Barnie played great, and we won 1–0. We were going to Germany next summer. But who would be the starting goalkeeper?

II.

Snap. Crackle. Pop. Moan.

My shoulder sounded like a bowl of cereal, as my therapists Bruce Shell and Dave Andrews helped me stretch through my pain to break up the scar tissue. They pushed me all winter. When I was in Los Angeles, the head trainer for the men’s team, Ivan Pierra, was in charge of my rehab. I suffered, but I fought my ass off. “This is among the most serious shoulder injuries that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been working in sports for twenty-eight years,” Bruce told ESPN. “And I can’t imagine too many worse injuries, from a traumatic standpoint.”

Sometimes our sessions lasted six hours. Pain and suffering was my full-time job. I was taking painkillers every night to sleep. I was pushing myself as hard as I could. The team went to China in January, but I wasn’t ready to travel with them—again I watched online. The results were mixed: we lost in our first game to Sweden. Though we won two other games, we didn’t dominate in any of them.

In March, I was medically cleared to join the team, so I joined them in camp for the Algarve Cup. I could sense tension—a vibe that seemed very familiar. The World Cup was just three months away and Pia, like Greg four years earlier, seemed to be starting to stress out. She hadn’t faced much pressure until now. When she took over before the ’08 Olympics, she had inherited a damaged, dysfunctional team: getting to the gold medal game eight months later was a bonus. But she’d guided the top-ranked team in the world for three years now. The players were the ones she had chosen. The team was struggling, and it didn’t help that her starting goalkeeper could barely move.

I was mentally ready to get back to work, but I was weak physically. I started simply, working on my footwork. Everything—things that had once been so easy for me—was difficult. I got frustrated and I started to lose confidence. I had been so impatient in rehab, where that mind-set worked for me, but on the field I had to learn to be patient. Paul wouldn’t let me face a shot until we got to Portugal. There, he tossed balls to me. I was scared to react, so fearful of the pain. Every time I touched the ball, I was in agony. The first time I dove I thought my shoulder anchors would rip loose. If I can’t do this, I thought, grimacing from a soft-tossed ball, how the hell am I going to stop Abby’s shots?

I looked in Paul’s eyes to see if I could spot doubt, but I didn’t. He never questioned me. Instead, he guided me in baby steps. Four shots to each side of my body one day, five shots the next. A little bit more confidence every day. He was protective and patient—creating drills in conjunction with my therapists that would increase both my range of motion and my healing. “You’re going to have pain,” Paul said, “so you’re going to have to learn to manage it.”

PAUL’S APPROACH WAS perfect. He pushed me just hard enough so that I was progressing without risking re-injury. He never panicked about my pain or my grimaces. He kept my confidence up and also kept Barnie sharp. He got me to the point where I felt so good that I was eager for more action, but he still wouldn’t let me practice with the team. He didn’t want to do anything that would be a setback—mentally or physically. He wanted to keep moving forward.

III.

“You’re not starting.” Paul looked at me as he delivered the news.

We were in London to play a friendly against England. At long last, I was medically cleared to play. We were six months past my surgery, eleven weeks away from the World Cup opener. I needed to start—I was running out of time. I’d been working toward game day, April 2—my dad’s birthday—for months as my target goal. Pia had already announced her starting lineup at practice and I was in it. I was excited. Now Paul said I wasn’t starting.

“We only have four games left before the World Cup,” I said. “I need time to prepare.”

“You’ll get the second half,” Paul said. When I protested, he asked, “Do you think you beat out Barnie?”

“Hell no, I haven’t beat out Barnie,” I said. “She’s playing the best I’ve ever seen her. But you’ve said you want me to be your starting goalkeeper for the World Cup and I need to get games. I need to make mistakes now so that I don’t make them closer to the World Cup. Now you’re only giving me three-and-a-half games to get ready for our most important tournament.”

But Paul didn’t