by Hope Solo
I was now a professional soccer player. The fact that there was a professional league for women seemed like a natural development in a world where the 1999 World Cup had sold out NFL stadiums, where fans crushed against fences to see Mia Hamm, where girls like me had been rewarded all our lives for working hard and playing well. It seemed like a natural step—but for me it was still a scary one. “Oh my god, Adrian, I have to move to Philadelphia,” I said. “I’m really going to miss you.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” he said.
I thought he was kidding. “Would you really?” We were just friends, right? Really good friends.
He said, “When you love someone as much as I love you, it’s not even a question of whether I’ll come.”
My breath caught in my chest. It was the first time he had said he loved me.
VIII.
I went back to Seattle and finished my classes, and then I was done with school. I went into the athletic building to say good-bye to Lesle and Amy and felt a wave of emotion. Going to UW was the best decision I ever made. If I had followed my original vow and gone as far away from home as possible, I might have never gotten to know my father, never improved my relationship with my mother, never learned as much about goalkeeping, never had coaches who would be role models and lifelong friends.
It was only fitting that I missed one more thing at UW because of soccer: my graduation ceremony. While my classmates donned robes and mortarboards, I was riding the bench for the Philadelphia Charge.
CHAPTER NINE
Made in the WUSA
The ball caromed off the crossbar, and Abby Wambach pounced on it, sending a rocket into the corner of the net. She was on fire; it was her third goal against us. But I couldn’t do anything but watch, because I wasn’t in the game. I was sitting on the bench while the Washington Freedom, a team that starred Abby and Mia Hamm, manhandled my Philadelphia Charge team.
Professional soccer wasn’t turning out to be what I expected. The launch of the Women’s United Soccer Association in 2001—the first professional soccer league for women—seemed to me like a natural evolution, not a revolution. Women’s sports were growing stronger and more important every year. Why shouldn’t we have our own league? When I was drafted by the WUSA, I thought I was joining the big time. I’d been in college and wasn’t paying much attention to the league’s growing pains or the dire forecasts. When Philadelphia drafted me, I felt I had arrived—a professional athlete, in the same category as Shaq or A-Rod. But by early May, I was learning the hard truth—women’s professional soccer wasn’t anything like the NBA or Major League Baseball. I had joined a league fighting desperately to stay alive. Corporate sponsorships weren’t panning out, crowds were nowhere near as big as projected, and television ratings were abysmal. The league was in a downward economic spiral; I had barely unpacked before I was asked to take a pay cut, dropping my salary from $35,000 to $30,000.
I didn’t understand the big-picture economics of the WUSA, but I could see we were running a bare-bones operation. We played our games at Villanova Stadium, training on a field of ancient and unforgiving Astroturf, and my back started to pay the price. This wasn’t anything close to my beautiful training facility back at UW. Worse, we didn’t have a goalkeeper coach. I went from working with a high-level coach, to basically training on my own. And it didn’t take long to figure out that decisions by the coaches were often made for political reasons. Philadelphia was my first lesson that talent doesn’t always win out. My coach, Mark Krikorian, had come to the WUSA from the University of Hartford. He coached the Charge to the semifinals in both of his first two seasons and was named Coach of the Year in 2002. He favored a goalkeeper named Melissa Moore, who was twenty-eight and had little experience at the national-team level. It seemed Mark felt he had found a diamond in the rough, and his feeling was vindicated when Moore won WUSA Goalkeeper of the Year honors in 2002. Melissa had played for Amy at New Mexico years earlier. She was a strong team leader, but I felt she wasn’t a top-level goalkeeper. I was an up-and-coming goalkeeper, and he drafted me as an investment in the future, but it didn’t seem to me that he wanted to play me.
AND SO I sat on the bench. I felt alone and homesick for the first time. After a lot of discussion, Adrian didn’t come with me. He had too many business projects in Seattle, and we were both worried about the commitment that would have come with his moving to Philadelphia just to be with me.
Cheryl didn’t come along either. And neither did Lesle and Amy. Everyone and everything was new. The East Coast was foreign to me—I missed the green of Seattle, and I had to learn how to cook. I called my mom and asked her to walk me through her lasagna recipe. Later, I called her to help me change a flat tire. Philadelphia was freezing until it abruptly became unbearably muggy. But the most unsettling thing was that since the Philadelphia Charge didn’t have a goalkeeping coach, Melissa effectively took on the role. During practices, the coaches would send us off to the side to work together. We called Amy to ask for some basic drills—we were so used to being told what to do. Mark wanted Melissa to tutor me. How, I wondered, would anyone know if I beat her out? It didn’t seem to me that I could compete for the job. I just wanted a fair shot.
So I sat and watched as our season disintegrated. We lost our first four games before I finally got a start on May 17 against New York. I had a shutout going until injury time of the second half, but we won 2–1, our first victory of the season. It didn’t matter. I went back to the bench and watched Melissa struggle. Later on, in film sessions with Mark, I watched the scoring all over again and listened to both Mark and Melissa make excuses, talking about our team’s poor marking or the opposition’s uncanny ability.
No matter how bad the goal—and some of them were shocking—Mark never seemed to place the blame on Melissa. Nothing in college or national-team training had prepared me for the lack of accountability. I sat quietly for weeks, frustrated. I liked Mark, and I felt that we had a decent team—French star Marinette Pichon was among the league leaders in goals scored. I believed that all we needed was a stop here and there.
Finally, as the season dragged on, I decided to offer my opinion during one of our film sessions. “You were out of position,” I said to Melissa, then turned to Mark. “Maybe we should get a goalkeeper coach to break down the film.”
Mark didn’t like that. He called Amy. “What’s the deal with this kid?” he said.
“What do you mean? She’s awesome. She’s a hard worker. She wants to prove herself.”
“Is she coachable?” Mark said. “She seems awfully immature.”
Maybe I was. Mark was known as a coach you didn’t confront.
I was getting worried about my career. I felt Mark’s refusal to play me was hurting my chances for the national team, and the Women’s World Cup was coming up in September—the first World Cup since the epic 1999 tournament—and it was back on U.S. soil. Every player in the national-team pool was training hard with the World Cup in mind. China had originally been slated to host the event, but the SARS epidemic of early 2003 caused a panic about travel to Asia. In May, FIFA decided to move the World Cup to the United States with just four months notice. The rationale was that the United States soccer federation could handle last-minute planning and that the tournament might bolster the struggling WUSA. China was awarded the rights to the 2007 World Cup.
Portland, which would serve as one of the host cities, was just three hours south of my home. For three years, I had been in and out of the national-team pool, and I felt I had a chance to make the roster this time. But I needed to play. In every Charge match, I saw national-team players starting for the opposition. Bri was starting for Atlanta. Siri was starting for the Washington Freedom and would ultimately lead them to the league championship. That was what the WUSA was supposed to be about: developing players with high-level regular competition. But I was stuck watching someone else’s mistakes on video.<
br />
I heard that April actually lobbied Mark to get me some playing time, but he stuck with Melissa as the hot, muggy Philadelphia summer dragged on. I was miserable. Finally, after a 3–1 loss on July 26 to Carolina, the Charge was officially eliminated from playoff contention. We had been at the bottom of the league all season and had gone 0–5 in July. With nothing to lose, Mark decided to play me. It was, however, too late for my World Cup chances: April had to name her roster in less than a month.
I started the final three games of the season. Against Atlanta, I earned my first professional shutout in a 3–0 win. Against Washington, I shut out the eventual champions, helping to hold Abby and Mia scoreless. In the season finale, at Carolina we tied 1–1, though we might have won if we had converted a late-game penalty kick. I finished the season with three wins and a tie and a little more confidence.
We got back to Philadelphia from Carolina and had a team exit meeting at the Villanova field. I drove my Chevy Blazer—already packed with all my belongings—to the meeting, and as soon as I was cleared to leave, I hit the road, heading west. I didn’t even stay for the team party. Maybe I was being a lousy teammate, but I was incredibly homesick. I missed Adrian. I drove nonstop—pulling over only to power-nap in rest areas—back to Seattle where Adrian waited for me.
It had been a rough rookie season. I vowed to myself that my second season in the WUSA would be better.
II.
Sofia looked at me and laughed. “Your jeans, they’re too . . .”—she made a big gesture with her hands—“I don’t know the English word. Wide?”
We were having coffee on a cobblestoned street in Haga, the three-hundred-year-old neighborhood of Göteborg, Sweden. I was wearing jeans that were too wide from the knee down—not skinny jeans like the kind everyone in Europe was wearing. I had on white tennis shoes, which also made Sofia laugh. I might as well have stamped AMERICAN on my forehead.
“Come on, Hope,” Sofia said, standing up. “We’re going to go shopping.”
We went down the street and walked into a stylish boutique. An hour later, I had skinny jeans, a ropey woolen scarf, and a pair of ankle boots. Thanks to Sofia, I looked a little more Euro. Which was a good thing, because I was now living in Europe. I was still a professional soccer player, but I was playing in Sweden.
Thirty-seven days after I played my last game for the Philadelphia Charge, the WUSA folded. Though I’d known the league was struggling, I was shocked. I got the call at the apartment in West Seattle I was sharing with Adrian. I plunked down hard on the couch, listening to a conference call announcing the death of the league just six days before the World Cup games were to begin. The players in the national-team pool were all distraught, particularly the ’99ers who had helped found the league. We were all cast adrift. The WUSA had made a lot of mistakes along the way. Probably the biggest was assuming that the passion and power of the ’99 World Cup could sustain an eight-team league. But Mia Hamm couldn’t be on every team. The San Diego Spirit versus the San Jose CyberRays wasn’t exactly a must-see event, especially when most members of the target audience—teenage soccer girls—had their own games to attend. The WUSA blew through its five-year budget in the first year, trying to create the illusion of big-time professional sports, with offices in New York, expensive travel, gratuitous perks, and too many league executives.
As I sat on my couch in Seattle I contemplated my future. How was I going to support myself? I was twenty-three and had been told for years that I had potential, potential, potential. But did the national team even have a spot for me? I was sick of hearing about my potential. I felt I was going backward. It was 2003, and I wasn’t any further along than I had been in 2000. I hadn’t played in a national-team game for over a year. What was I going to do?
I wasn’t the only one worrying. The vibe for the ’03 World Cup was nothing like it was in ’99. The crowds were smaller and less enthusiastic—the roar in ’99 had turned into a whisper. Because the games were in September and October, they competed with college football and the NFL, so no one paid attention. The stench of the failed WUSA seemed to cling to everything.
On October 5, the United States lost 3–0 to Germany in a semifinal game in Portland. There wouldn’t be any repeat championship. I sat in the stands with Adrian, watching my teammates openly weep on the field. My good friend Cat Reddick fell to the ground and lay there sobbing until a veteran came over and pulled her to her feet. It was a depressing end to a sad summer for women’s soccer.
While I figured out what to do with my life, I kept coaching kids. My friend Malia had become the coaching director of one of the biggest clubs in Seattle and she hired me as a goalkeeper coach and connected me with parents looking for private training. Thanks to Malia, I coached all around the Seattle area that winter—boys, girls, young and younger. I found the work fulfilling and felt that I connected with the kids, but I hated driving back and forth across Seattle and being in the cold and wet all day. Coaching in the Seattle winter is tough duty. I wasn’t prepared to call that my career.
I spent a lot of time with my father during those months, curling up on his couch to nap between coaching gigs. I felt I could tell him anything—what I was thinking, how I was feeling. We talked about sports, about the future. Our relationship blossomed without the stress of the streets. But you could never take the streets out of my dad. One day we drove through a lousy neighborhood and stopped at a red light, where a bunch of tough guys, obviously up to no good, were hanging out on a corner. All of a sudden, my dad flashed a switchblade at them through the window, a warning not to mess with us.
“Dad,” I yelled, and started laughing. He was forever the tough son of a bitch.
Adrian and I enjoyed living in West Seattle, near Alki Beach. We played beach volleyball and prowled our neighborhood cafés. As always, our time together was special, but we kept it casual. I was just staying at his apartment: no serious commitment. That’s what we said, but we liked living together.
Around the holidays, my agent called. A First Division Swedish team, Kopparbergs/Göteborg, in southern Sweden, had offered me a contract. Why not, I thought? It sounded like an adventure, a chance to make more money than I could in the United States, and a way to prove to April and Phil that I was determined to get better. I needed game action, and I would get it in Sweden.
In February I flew to Göteborg and then headed directly to the Canary Islands for training camp, where I met my new teammates. I was the only American on the team. Playing in Sweden changed my life. Unencumbered by college obligations or family demands or the chase for the national-team carrot, I rediscovered my love for the game. I wasn’t trying to please anyone or move up a ladder or prove anything to April. I relaxed and had fun.
Early on, I lived out in the country in a guesthouse on the team owner’s estate with two players from Brazil, Daniela and Juliana. But my friends on the team insisted that I come stay in town, so I got an apartment in Göteborg, a beautiful city that was easy to navigate. I was making more money than I had made in Philadelphia, and I didn’t have any expenses. The team covered my apartment, my food, my phone, my Internet, my car, and my gas. So I gave my teammates rides everywhere—none of the Swedes on the team drove cars because gas was so expensive and they weren’t reimbursed. I was having fun.
Even better, I could tell I was improving on the field. The pace of the game was faster than in the WUSA; I had to make quicker decisions and take charge. Our team was playing well, and I was considered one of the top goalkeepers in a pretty good league.
I loved walking the cobblestoned streets of Haga, the old district, or wandering along the canal. I drank cider with my new friends and learned to toast by saying “Skål.” Lotta Schelin and her older sister, Camilla, became my close friends, inviting me to their family home nearby and including me in their elaborate Easter dinner, where I learned to eat pickled herring. My closest friend was midfielder Sofia Palmqvist, who
was a deep thinker. We were both in our twenties and trying to figure out life. We went kayaking together outside of town, talking about our lives and dreams. We played Dance Dance Revolution in my apartment and went to clubs in Göteborg. I also spent a lot of time alone, reading books like Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior, about an athlete on a spiritual journey. I started a journal. I began to read the Bible. I wanted to find my center, to expand my heart and mind.
Now that I was far from my family, I appreciated their support and love even more. I called my dad and sent him postcards, and I called my mother almost every day. She had visited me in Philadelphia where—sharing a bed in my tiny studio apartment—she had opened up for the first time about her history with my father, telling me how they met and all the pain he put her through. I felt I knew her better now and I wanted to stay connected to her. Living on my own gave me perspective on the struggles she went through to make sure we had a home.
I had to move five thousand miles away to fully appreciate that.
III.
In late May 2004, I left my Swedish team and flew back to the United States for the Olympic residency camp in Southern California. April was finalizing her roster for the Athens Olympics, and—except for a few games with the Charge—she hadn’t seen me play since September 2002. I had few expectations about making the Athens roster. I was just happy with my progress in Sweden, and I wasn’t nervous about impressing the national team coaches. Everyone could tell that something about me had changed. On the field, I felt looser and more confident. I had an excellent two weeks of training and then returned to Sweden.