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

The night before the game, my goalkeeper coach, Paul, told me he wanted me to go over film with him. To my surprise, after we sat down in front of the screen to watch video, all my teammates entered the room. Paul started the film: it was a compilation he had put together of almost every one of my hundred games. It was hilarious—different uniforms, my hair changing color as the years passed. My teammates applauded and laughed and gave me cards with their handwritten tributes. The compilation ended, of course, with the Brazil game. Everyone cheered. I was touched. It was a beautiful gift. It had taken me eleven long years to get to one hundred—only the second goalkeeper in history, along with Bri, to achieve that mark. It was worth the wait to earn the honor with this team. My team.

It occurred to me later how much had changed in four years. The night before the 2007 semifinal game, I had been exiled. In Germany, I celebrated.

III.

France was all over us on that rainy Wednesday night. We got an early goal on a cross from Lauren Cheney that Heather O’Reilly tapped in, but France was relentless, connecting passes and unafraid to shoot. Our defense was constantly challenged; Becky Sauerbrunn was in as a replacement for Buehler, who couldn’t play because of the red card.

France tied the game in the second half, when I came out for a cross that Sonia Bompastor looped in toward a runner; I was expecting a header, but the runner leaped over the ball, and it slipped into the right side of the net. France continued to dominate possession. Alex Morgan came in for Amy Rodriguez immediately after France tied the game, and was aggressive right away. She almost scored but was called offside on the play. Still France kept pushing forward; a berth in the World Cup final was twelve minutes away. And then Abby’s forehead came to the rescue again. Lauren Cheney sent a corner to the far post and Abby rose up above everyone—I could see her elevate from my end of the field—and hammered the ball into the net.

Moments later, Alex, our rookie, scored her first World Cup goal, lifting the ball over the French goalkeeper who had slipped to the ground, to give us a 3–1 lead. A few minutes later, the victory was complete. We were in the World Cup final for the first time since 1999.

IV.

We drove by bus to Frankfurt, the site of the final. We tried to recover our legs and relax a little. We goofed around, playing soccer tennis. I did very little in training. The pain in my shoulder was getting worse and worse, and I went through hours of treatment between games. On the practice field, I couldn’t dive. I did everything I could to save myself for the competition. And every night I had to take a heavy dose of painkillers to get to sleep. I was taking a series of shots to prepare for games, something that needed to be scheduled and planned: cortisone, Synvisc, Toradol. Every time the long needle plunged deep into my joint there was searing pain followed by brief relief.

We knew Japan well. We had played them three times in 2011. A lot was being made of our 22–0–3 record against them, but we had suffered our first losses to Mexico and to England in recent months, so we knew all streaks eventually end. Japan’s history in the World Cup wasn’t impressive: they had won only three games, and had escaped group play just once, in 1995. But they finished fourth in the Beijing Olympics after losing to us in the semifinals, and they had continued to improve. They were a speedy, high-energy, ball-possession team—Homare Sawa was a legend in Japan, and they had other smart, dangerous players, including my good friend Aya Miyama.

We also knew that they were playing at an emotional level that we couldn’t comprehend. The wounds from the March 9.0 earthquake and devastating tsunami in Japan hadn’t even begun to heal: the dead—upward of fifteen thousand—were still being counted, and thousands more were missing. After the disaster, I tried for days to reach Aya, who was from one of the areas that suffered heavy damage. The country had rallied behind their gutsy women’s team, which—playing on the other side of the world—was showing a new tenacity. Japan had knocked off Germany, the host, and Sweden on its way to the finals. There was a lot of talk in the press about how much adversity our U.S. team had fought through on the way to the final, that we seemed to be a team of destiny. But there was another team in the final that had a much stronger claim to such stirring descriptions.

The night before the final, I received an e-mail from Aya, wishing me luck. Normally, I would never respond to a message from an opponent, but I knew these were moments we would never get back. It felt right to honor a person I respected so much, who competed so hard.

Aya,

Let’s enjoy this moment no matter what happens.

Hope.

Later that night, my phone buzzed. I had a text from my brother David. He wished me luck. He said he missed me. “I will be a better brother,” he wrote.

I hadn’t seen David in almost two years. We talked on the phone once or twice a year. His text meant a lot to me—one more part of my support team falling in place. I could feel my dad’s spirit inside of me. And now my oldest brother was texting me.

“And I will be a better sister,” I texted back. “I love you.”

V.

Inside the stadium, fifty thousand people greeted us, many of them holding signs and waving American flags. There were several Star Wars–inspired tributes to me—HANDS SOLO and THE FORCE IS WITH YOU, SOLO. Another sign read: MARRY ME HOPE, I’M SOLO. Eight