In a span of eleven months let's trace what happened to Hope Solo:
1) I wrote an article about her being hot and pretending to like video games to attract additional male suitors.
2) She was the starting US goalkeeper at the 2007 World Cup and had yet to yield a goal in 300 straight minutes
3) She got benched in the semifinals because she supposedly was not as good as 36-year-old keeper Brianna Scurry, who supposedly had "quick reflexes."
4) The US lost the Scurry game to Brazil 4-0
5) Hope Solo then issued a message on Myspace stating that:
"If you truly expect to realize your dreams, abandon the need for blanket approval. If conforming to everyone's expectations is the number one goal, you have sacrificed your uniqueness, and therefore your excellence."
She then also added, just to be clear: "There's no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves."
6) Hope Solo's teammates then pretended she was frozen in carbonite in response to her comments and banished her from the 3rd place game at the World Cup.
Now...
before the Olympics, Hope Solo said in Sports Illustrated that ""We don't have to be friends to respect what somebody does on the field," she says. "I truly hope women's sports can get to that point." So... it sounds like some of the teammates are still annoyed about the comments Hope Solo made after the loss to Brazil.
With all this history in mind, especially the fact that Hope Solo was benched because the team was playing Brazil, what in the world could be sweeter than Hope Solo not only beating Brazil 1-0 for the gold medal, but shutting out Brazil and even making a "reflex save on Marta's blast from eight yards after she had split two U.S. defenders in the box." As Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated pointed out, Hope Solo's reflex saves were the exact reason she was supposedly benched.
I don't think anything could have been sweeter for Hope Solo, short of winning the gold medal game with a bunch of Ewoks as her teammates to further show how amazing her goaltending skills are.
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