Greg Ryan and Hope Solo’s critics need to take a few deep breaths and venture back a little bit in time. Members of the US Women’s National Team, past and present, along with those in the media and sitting at home, need to remember the moments immediately in the aftermath of the systematic and devastating 4-0 destruction by the Brazilians, as she started her way through the press gauntlet known as the "mix zone," where reporters like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Erin Paul try to get quick interviews with the players on their way to the locker room.

Before Hope Solo said one word, what did you think in those moments about that game, and Coach Greg Ryan's decision to bench Hope Solo in favor of veteran Briana Scurry? If you haven't seen it already, here is how I saw the move even before the results came in: (Ryan Benches Solo; Scurry to Start vs. Brazil) .

What did you think about the indecisive way Scurry handled the ball early on, including the way she failed to call off Leslie Osborne on the corner kick where Osborne stooped so low to the ground in her attempted clearance of the ball that she almost fell over before she re-directed it into her own net for an own goal and a 1-0 deficit?

Remember this pre-game quote from Ryan explaining the decision to start Briana Scurry ahead of Hope Solo: "The way the Brazilians play in terms of creating off the dribble in the penalty box and making a goalkeeper make reaction-type saves, I think Bri is the best goalkeeper in the world in those situations." (United States Makes Surprise Change In Goal For Brazil; veteran Scurry Replaces Solo)

Then what did you think about it as Marta dribbled from right to left across the face of the US goal and created a goal by beating Scurry to the near post? How about when Ryan started making defensive substitutions when 2 goals down in a World Cup Semi-final? Were those the substitutions of a coach trying to win a game, or simply desperate to not embarass himself?

But before we get to far into the farce that was the Brazilian game and Ryan's incompetent managing of it, I'd like to step back further, all the way to the lead-up to this tournament back in June, as it speaks volumes as to the respective characters and abilities of the protagonists in this affair.

Immediately before the pair of friendlies in June versus Brazil and China, Hope Solo lost her father to a heart attack. Rather than repeat the whole story, take a few minutes and watch ESPN's version of the story:

This was broadcast during half-time of the US-Norway game, and was clearly intended to be shown at the same slot in what would have been our much-anticipated championship game vs. Germany. To summarize for those who don't have the time and/or energy or bandwidth to watch the video, Solo's father was supposed to see her play in person for the first time in the Brazilian friendly this year, but his untimely death prevented that, as well as her participation in either of those two games as she mourned his passing. As a result, she had dedicated her performance in the World Cup this year to his memory.

Those two games were the only complete games prior to the semi-final vs. Brazil that Scurry had played since a 1-1 draw in a friendly vs. England in China in January that featured a mostly B lineup for the Americans. Scurry's only other appearance this year was the second half of a 6-1 ritualistic slaughter of New Zealand in a "friendly" in August, hardly the stuff to keep one sharp, yet that didn't prevent Scurry from stating in the aftermath of the announcement of her promotion for the semi-final: "I have been playing incredibly well. I kept myself in shape, kept myself on my toes and sharp."

Self-confidence is exactly what a team needs to have from its goalkeeper, and is part of what Solo is criticized for expressing in a more direct manner in her post-game comments, but more on that in a bit.

Scurry's statements are actually not those of a starter at all, but of a sub trying to convince everyone around that all that time picking splinters out of her butt on the bench hasn't made her rusty. Unfortunately her play in the first half vs. Brazil demonstrated exactly how much of that was bluster, and how much reality. US Women's National Team 2007 Pre World Cup Results and Lineups

And I'm not a Scurry-basher at all, as I fully believe that she is not only the greatest goalie that the US has ever had, but the person whose "gamesmanship"* vs. China in the penalty kick shootout of the 1999 final was far more directly responsible for the victory than the shooters doing what they're supposed to do with a penalty kick: score it. But it's impossible to put Solo's comments and Ryan's actions in the proper context without mentioning what actually happened.

Now back to the story at hand, fast-forward-style.

Hope Solo is the number 1 goalkeeper; her father dies, she misses two friendly games, including a 2-0 victory over Brazil; she plays the rest of the rehearsal series of games up to the World Cup and the first 4 games of the tournament with the exception of 44 minutes of a meaningless friendly safely in the bag; she gets benched because she doesn't have any experience vs. Brazil.

Now here's where the story gets ridiculous.

In addition to the "reaction" rationale Ryan gave for switching Scurry for Solo, here he continues his explanation: "She (Solo) knew there were certain types of games that I felt like Bri would be the keeper." (Ryan Benches Solo For Scurry In World Cup Semifinal vs. Crafty Brazil)

Then crucially we hear the follow-up as to whether this is a one-time sub: "Asked if Solo would return to play in the final, if the United States defeats Brazil, Ryan replied: 'I don't know.'" (United States Makes Surprise Change In Goal For Brazil; veteran Scurry Replaces Solo)

Now remember, he already knows who the opponent is going to be in the Final, the same opponent everybody expected all along, Germany, and yet somehow his tactical "Bri is better vs. Brazil" explanation shifts to "Bri is better in big games." Are you kidding us? This comment was made prior to the Brazil match, and appears here to be setting the stage for a decision whereby he would have one goalkeeper for the first 4 games, and another for the semi-final and final.

Then comes the semi-final vs. Brazil itself. The New York Times' Jere Longman pretty succinctly summed it up as "The defense was porous, clumsy and frantic even before Boxx was sent off." And when you decide to forgo playing the ball through the midfield as Ryan did up until the after-thought 3rd place game vs. Norway, an over-whelmed back-line can't get the ball to the forwards Abby Wambach and Heather O'Reilly so you have no offense, as the 4-0 scoreline and measly 4 shots on goal can attest. (USA Falls, 4-0, Brazil In 2007 FIFA World Cup Semifinals)

As Robert Burns of Fox Soccer connected the dots: "They were disorganized from the start and never seemed to have their heads in the game. So instead of spending the day before the match concentrating on ways to stop Brazilian star Marta (who played the best match I've ever seen a female player play), the U.S. women were ducking questions about a decision that never needed to be made in the first place." (Soap Opera Conclusion For Ryan's Hope)

For those who can stomach it, here's the low-lights:

I think that pretty accurately sets the stage for what was to come. Now here we are again with Solo dejectedly walking towards the locker room after being forced to helplessly watch her intended dedication disappear into thin air. As she approached the CBC reporter, Erin Paul, he asked "Hope, do you want to comment?" then up stepped US Soccer Federation press agent Aaron Heifetz, ghost-writer of Mia Hamm's 2000 memoir "Go For the Goal: A Champion's Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life" (you can't make this stuff up).

Heifetz replied: "She didn't play, you only want to talk to people who played the game." (Ryan's Goalkeeper Switch Backfires In A Big Way)

And with that seemingly simple attempt at corporate-style message control the die was cast.

Here's the video ESPN borrowed from the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (I wish CBC would have posted the full version of this, but they didn't so this is all we've got):

And for those who prefer to read the quotes:

"It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that. There's no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is it's not 2004 anymore. ... It's 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can't live by big names. You can't live in the past. It doesn't matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold-medal game in the Olympics three years ago. Now is what matters."

And one last thing that everybody leaves out except the CBC reporter who was there on the spot, she was goaded into it by a US Soccer Federation PR Rep, to whom she responded in a quote never included, "Don't you ever tell me what interviews I can do."

ESPN's Jemele Hill hyperbolically claimed this was Solo "[running] over Scurry like a two-ton semi". (Hope Solo Is Right, And Wrong)

How's that again?

The "wrong decision" was made by Ryan.

"I would have made those saves" is about Solo and her personal confidence in her abilities. Of course it's comparative, but what do her teammates want her to say, "I'm not better than her and would have missed them as well"? (see Scurry's comments above about her readiness despite not playing)

I would be more than willing to bet that every single one of them who has real competition for her position has thought at some point in their career when she was in a similar bench-warming situation that had she played instead of her competition…

• she wouldn't have allowed that goal, especially one at the near post like Brazil's second goal, where a 'keeper is supposed to never get beat;
• or that she would have made the final pass for a sure-fire assist;
• or that she would have scored that sitter that would have won a game

A "sitter" for those not in the know is a ball basically rolling in front of the net or some place similar and only needs to be tapped in by the attacker for a sure goal).

Thanks to the good research work of Jen Chang at ESPN.com (The Solo Fallout) , we even can see that Briana Scurry made very similar remarks during the 2004 Olympics about her predecessor, Siri Mullinix, and the 2000 Olympics Gold Medal game vs. Sunday's opponents, Norway, albeit well after the game was played: "I put myself into that entire game, and I've always felt —and I still feel— that if I were playing, we would have won." (U.S. Goalkeeper Scurry Out To Make Amends)

So yes, the last part of Solo's quote refers to Scurry though not by name, but again it is referencing Ryan's decision, not Scurry personally, and Solo is right. What Scurry did in 1999 and 2004 is completely irrelevant to what should have determined Ryan's decision regarding whom to play. Those are factual statements that can't be contested and in no way diminish Scurry, merely directly calling into question the logic that Ryan used to make his choice.

And Solo didn't choose to compare the two goalkeeper's respective abilities, Ryan did, both in words and by making the change. How is it not fair for Solo to respond to her coach's public comments regarding her perceived personal limitations?

Remember, Ryan said: "at the time I look at experience against Brazil, and Bri has that. Reaction saves, Bri has that." Meaning, Solo doesn't have that. Not that she can do anything about not having played Brazil before, which if everybody used the same logic, you would never see new goalkeepers playing their first games against strong opponents in competitive matches. But even worse according to Ryan, apparently Solo can't make reaction saves.

To adapt what Solo said about the game, anybody who knows anything about goalkeeping knows that almost every save to some extent is necessarily a reaction save as otherwise the implication is that you know exactly where the player is going to shoot the ball. So either you always have god-like prescience and positioning, or 9 times out of 10 you are reacting at least somewhat to what the attacker has done to try to get the ball past you. Ideally if your positioning is sound, you have to react less than otherwise, so an argument about reactions really is over-emphasizing one aspect of a 'keeper's game over others.

Now Ryan didn't mention Solo by name, merely obliquely referenced her abilities, but by the same token Solo wasn't referring to Scurry by name, instead expressing confidence in her own capabilities. How can a coach defend himself by questioning a players ability be acceptable, yet the player's statements defending herself by refuting those questions not be?

Look again at the text of Solo's comments above and you will clearly see that she didn't betray her teammate Scurry with her comments, she betrayed Ryan.

Of course a team generally wants to keep its disputes internal, but this is not a normal situation by any stretch of the imagination. This "team" disintegrated the moment Ryan made the poor decision he did and followed that by piss-poor execution of it. His attempt to scape-goat Solo for it is pretty dishonest and self-serving, belying his claims at putting no thoughts to saving his job.

Solo didn't make her comments before the game and we all saw the results. The US team was clearly rattled psychologically by the initial decision as amply demonstrated by their pre-game quotes in the press in response to it, and did not even show up on the field vs Brazil.

Veteran Kristine Lilly tried to paper over the effect of Ryan's distracting personnel change in the pre-Norway press conference by saying: "I don't think it was a distraction during the game. The game itself, everyone wants to talk about (the loss), and we are missing the game itself. We didn't play well. Brazil was better that day. That's the main thing about it, we just didn't play well. I wouldn't say there was any distraction. When we were on that field we were playing the game and we were there with the players on the field and the players on the bench. It did cause a little more of a distraction now because we have to deal with it, because you guys want to know all these things that are going on. That's the only way I feel it's come into our area."

Left completely unsaid is WHY the US "didn't play well". Lilly and company don't exactly make a convincing argument when they have yet to offer an alternative reason for their collapse more than "Brazil was better that day." They could say that if they still played their game, and Brazil just happened to step up their game, but the U.S. didn't show up and nobody has yet to give us a more reasonable explanation as to why.

If they believe they truly are a better team than Brazil, they have to look at themselves and explain why THEY didn't play better than they did, and the obvious answer is they were distracted by the decision, not because of the media.

The claims that they have to focus on it because the press asks them questions isn't any more believable of a line than when President Bush's press secretary makes it, and frankly it's pretty insulting that the players have even tried to use it. They would have been far better served had they just kept quiet than to trot out scripted happy-talk in the name of team unity.

Why would it take the "media" talking about such a bizarre tactical change as what Ryan did to get the players thinking about it? I mean, everybody I talked to about it even before the game, all long-time soccer people mind you, thought it was the strangest tactical move they'd ever heard of outside of rec league/high school soccer.

Instead, by attempting to bolster Briana Scurry to get through this farce of a tournament, the team by themselves speaking out publicly, ironically also breaking the so-called silent code of conduct, CHOSE to consciously attack Hope Solo.

Solo's coach, teammates, and many critics in the press have chosen to ignore her entire career with the national team and tournament so far, even the graceful way she initially stepped aside and gamely tried to act the good soldier as she sat on the sidelines and watched her dreams crumble in front of her eyes, and instead portrayed her as the selfish "what about me?" spoiled, modern athlete stereotype; not the person who sacrificed a professional career to join her teammates and train full-time at the team's residency camp in preparation for this very tournament.

Solo gave up everything for her team for this tournament, and in the end what did it get her? A coach who didn't even have enough faith in his acknowledged number 1 goalkeeper that he would allow her to play a World Cup semi-final, all while claiming that he MIGHT allow her to play a final. Soccer doesn't have designated goalkeepers. You have a number 1, not a number 1 against everybody but Brazil. This is not superstition, it's soccer, and coaches at the highest level are supposed to know the difference.

As far as the "unwritten code of conduct", were it to be considered absolute, as though a player should never air out the team's dirty laundry in public, you would basically give permission to all sorts of strange and perverse interactions, where ostracision and cliqueish behavior is used to keep outlying personalities in line.

That may be fine for kids, but grown adults are supposed to be above that. Professional athletes are supposed to be able to separate out their personal feelings from their abilities to play the game. They're supposed to be able to have some understanding of what their teammates are going through and not feel a need for a bunker-like, group-think mentality so strong that anyone who steps out of line of the George Bush-like "you're either with us, or against us" manichean world-view. Especially when they know that independent of their feelings as to whether or not she should express confidence in her own abilities, she was right in 100% of her criticism of Ryan.

As Melanie Jackson also at ESPN.com aptly put it: "When you step on the field, as I did for 17 years, you put the crap behind you. You want the 10 best players possible around you. And as a sweeper, the last defender on the field, you can bet I wanted the best goalkeeper behind me. Never mind if we weren't friends off the field. If she could keep the ball out of the net better than her peers, we should be able to communicate enough on the field and play well enough together to do our jobs to the best of our abilities." (Solo's Teammates Leave Her In The Cold)

Clearly Ryan and the Fed are trying to frame the discussion now to shift the attention from Ryan to Solo: "the one common code has always been the players supported one another. That strong bond between the players to support each other no matter what -- whether they agree with me or not with me, playing style, performance decisions -- always, always backed one another."

"I think she understands she lost this team, and this team has to play for each other and they have to care for each other. She knows that trust is hard to gain, easy to break and even more difficult to regain, but I believe she is committed to the process and it takes more than an apology; it takes actions, day by day, living right, being a good teammate."

I think those statements ironically could be far more truthfully applied to himself. HE lost this team BEFORE the Brazil game. As a matter of fact, that second bit about trust applies doubly to him as the coach. I don't know what player on that team seeing the decision to bench Solo and start Scurry, followed by the resulting game plan vs. Brazil wouldn't have lost their trust in his ability to lead the team. But I don't think you'll hear anything from Ryan even approaching the apology that Solo made privately to the team, or publicly on her Myspace blog,and which Ryan claims to be inadequate. Further, there really isn't any way for him with his actions "day by day" to ever be able to restore that trust and faith.

But that's what being a coach is all about. You're never wrong, for if you admit to being wrong, in other words being human, then your ability to motivate players and get them to mindlessly do what you say unquestioningly goes out the window. At least that's the theory.

You'll never hear a coach say, "I screwed up and let my team down, but I've learned from my mistake and hopefully they will forgive me and we can all move on to a more successful future." It's like when somebody cheats on their spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend: you can never quite put the pieces back together again well-enough that there won't always be lingering doubts in moments of weakness whether they're repeating the same mistakes. For most people, once sacred trusts like that are lost, they can never be re-gained except in the most exceptional of circumstances and with a lot of work on both sides.

While it may have been helpful for all considered to distract the players like that and throw Solo under the bus to try and get some sort of result out of the Norway match, that's just a matter of convenience, and kind of disgusting to watch given the situation and relative levels of responsibility for the mess that became the US World Cup campaign. Even more lame is watching the sports press buy into the "Solo rips/slams/insults teammate" line, when you didn't even have to be in China to personally assess for yourself based on the on-field result which was more likely the root cause of the turmoil evident in the American camp: Ryan's benching Solo or Solo's reaction to it.

What Solo said was emotional, reactive, probably not the wisest thing to do by all counts, and made in the heat of the moment, after being forced to watch helplessly from the sidelines as her team got bounced from a tournament that she dedicated to the memory of her recently deceased father, and then basically being told by a US Soccer Fed PR rep to keep her mouth shut. By his own admission Ryan's decision was long thought over, yet still miserably executed.

Ryan's game plan not only included the ridiculous goalkeeper switch, but inexplicable lineup changes throughout the tournament (and lack thereof). You can start with making defensive subs in a game where you're already down 2 or 3 goals, but even before that why did he leave Abby Wambach in so long vs. England, especially after he said this in the pre-game: "You wonder, How does she get a second yellow when England was up 3-0 and had already advanced to the next round? Why was she still on the field?". (Fighting For Respect)

And then what about his tactics with all of the other strange, late subs he made, or didn't make when he chose to only make one 90th minute sub in the Korea match, 2 vs. Sweden, and then 2 more after the 80th minute of a long-since sewn up game vs. England? What about not protecting a 2-goal lead against Korea, actually CHOOSING to play down a player against a frenetic and agressive team like North Korea in less than ideal playing conditions?

Soccer is not baseball, and goalkeepers are not pitchers. Soccer coaches can't "manage" like the St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, or Joe Torre of the New York Yankees, bringing in a pitcher to face a single batter just because they statistically give you a better match-up, say they never give up home runs to left-handed batters, or have a 0.00 Earned Run Average vs. 3-4-5 hitters on Thursdays in the last week of September while facing 30 different batters over the last 15 seasons.

You can do a certain amount of that with field players, although with only 3 subs per game, not even that much there. With field players, if someone isn't quite working out, you have multiple players and tactical changes you can make over the course of a game to fix the problem. Unless your goalkeeper gets injured, your pick generally has to last the whole game, whatever strange, unexpected things may happen on the field.

As Soccer America's Ridge Mahoney quoted US Men's National Team goalkeeper Kasey Keller: "Keller once said if he was playing well, be it for club or country, he expected to keep the spot. Period. If he played poorly, he'd know why he lost it. But losing it despite playing well, he said, he just couldn't accept."

There always seemed to be something wrong with the American women the entire tournament. While some of the blame for not racking up the kinds of dominant victories we have come to expect from them can be attached to the fact that they were no longer playing friendlies at home against sacrificial lambs shipped in to the slaughter, another measure of blame can be assigned to the freakish weather that seems to go along with playing international tournaments during the Asian rainy season (remember some of the downpours during Korea/Japan 2002?), other than late in the first half and on into the beginning of the second half of the quarterfinal game vs. England the American women never seemed to really click.

To many, myself included, the biggest factor in this outside of the above-mentioned givens has been the tactics Ryan deployed. Gone was the attractive passing and possession-based games American fans have come to know and love, and in its place was a straightforward, English-style "Route 1" game involving a series of long-balls sent up top to target-forward Abby Wambach. For an indication of how reliant Ryan's team has been on Wambach you only need to know that with her 6 goals in this tournament, she now has more goals in 2 World Cups than the US's all-time leading goal-scorer Mia Hamm managed to score in 4 World Cups, including 2 Cups that we won**. As good as Wambach is, acknowledging that she has had the fastest start to her career of any goal-scorer ever, she'd probably be the first to admit that she's no Mia, at least not yet.

It's kind of hard not to have a certain amount of that happen when you've got a presence as big and strong as Wambach up top, but to have that seemingly be the ONLY weapon in your arsenal other than dead-ball plays doesn't really lend itself to building the kind of confidence necessary to dominate and control games at the top level.

And it's not like the pipeline of young players has dried up at all, as even Ryan alluded when he chose to fire a gratuitous shot at Solo by saying: "One of the great strengths of American teams is the talent pool of our goaltenders." (Controversy Surrounding World Cup Loss) . The strong performance all tournament long of midfielder Lori Chalupny and Heather O'Reilly also give room for optimism about our future, though we do need to figure out how to get more speed into the ranks. But for whatever reason we don't seem to have been able to produce the coaching staff equal to the quality of our players, with the notable exception so far of Tony Dicicco.

While it certainly isn't anywhere's near what we spend on the men's program, few can deny that the United States has invested more time, money, and energy in developing our women's team than any other country in the world. Yet all that doesn't count for anything when you don't have the leadership to draw out that potential.

In contrast look at what Brazil managed to achieve without even a team for 2 of the 3 years since Mia Hamm and company beat them in the Athens Olympics Gold Medal game, because while they don't have the same amount of money that we do, they absolutely have the coaches who know how to not only win, but play attractive soccer while doing so. Even the traditionally stodgy Northern European teams in Germany and Norway managed to put together better technical and possession-oriented games than we did.

Greg Ryan should be embarrassed and ashamed at how he squandered his inheritance, for that surely is what he's done given the three full years he had to build this team back up from a rather sturdy foundation, despite the departure of the Golden Generation of American women.

According to him, the number 1 ranked team in the world seemingly had the shortest bench in the tournament. The offense was so built around the size and strength of Abby Wambach that apparently he thought there wasn't a single other option than having her on the field at all times possible, otherwise he would have subbed her out with a 2 goal lead vs. North Korea.

Whatever the case was this year, with prolonged success of the sort the Americans had experienced prior to Brazil it can lead to a great deal of faith that whatever happens on the field you'll eventually wind up on top, but that generally only lasts as long as the players don't see a different script starting to develop on the field. Throw in a flukey own-goal at the beginning of a game after an inexplicable tactical switch like Ryan made and you're basically looking at a foregone conclusion.

Ironically, in the long run this game and all of the subsequent controversy may do more for the Women's National Team than even beating Brazil might have. Had they beat Marta and company, some people might have recognized it for the achievement it was given the clear individual quality of the Brazilian players both in 2004 in Athens and this tournament, but most probably would have yawned at their 52nd consecutive win.

With Brazil's stylish play handing the US their worst loss in history, the parity among the top teams in the world that was obvious to those close to the game becomes apparent to even the most casual observers. For those in doubt, feel free to browse through all of the articles I've indexed on this World Cup and see for yourself the questions that have been asked all tournament long about the tactics and abilities of this American team versus the dominant play of Brazil and Germany, the latter of which didn't concede a goal all tournament long, though neither of those teams had nearly as difficult a group as the US did.

With the noted exception of the 2004 Olympics Gold Medal, the US now hasn't won a meaningful tournament since the 1999 Women's World Cup. I'm sorry to say this, but all the Algarve Cups and Peace Cups and 4-Nations Tournaments in the world don't matter when compared to the World Cup. The only reason that the Olympics is even up there is that on the women's side they at least play full senior sides, instead of treating it as an underage U-23 tournament like the men do. Still, to any serious soccer player, the World Cup is the biggest prize of all, either the original men's version or the 16-year-old women's version.

Adding a little controversy on top of that to get all of the sports pundits and commentators other than the usual suspects something understandable to chew on is also a plus. What sports editor doesn't love spending more air time and column inches discussing star athletes in conflict with the coaching staff? Sports media lives on this stuff. I've found two to three times as many articles about this game, directly related to the controversy, as I did about any of the previous games. (US vs. Brazil articles)

The next closest game as far as the volume of coverage was related to the North Korea game, another controversy in that it involved the only 2 goals the US allowed prior to the Brazil game, and again featured a controversial tactical decision of Ryan, his choice to not to sub the injured Abby Wambach, which resulted in the Koreans scoring two goals while Wambach was in the locker room. (US vs. North Korea articles)

It might have mattered a little bit more had FIFA made a rational decision in timing of the tournament to where it didn't compete against UEFA's Champions League and the Rugby World Cup in Europe, and everything in the world in the US including the baseball playoff race and the start of the NFL and college football.

Brandi Chastain was right in saying "If he's back, U.S. Soccer should be ashamed and embarrassed. They need to make a change. If they don't do something, then the whole organization is culpable for this outcome." and (it means they don't care). For not only did he lose the game and team, but in the process he also managed to darken the reputation of Briana Scurry, whose competitive career will now have needlessly ended with a 4-0 shellacking instead of an Olympics Gold.

To her teammates, it's probably not that Solo's apology was too little, too late, it was that even if her criticism of Scurry was indirect, the team needed to tell Scurry that THEY didn't blame her for the loss. If they didn't do that, they would have lost 2 goalkeepers instead of just one. Even if they believed that she had made some rather obvious mistakes in the game, they had to try to pick her up and keep the only other experienced goalkeeper they had to play in the 3rd place game. Plus, they have to know that one player didn't lose that game, since they still didn't score a single goal against Brazil.

Compare Solo's reaction to Ryan's after the Brazilian loss and tell me who deserves to part ways with the national team.

Ryan said: "No, I'm not devastated by the loss, but I'm disappointed for my players. I feel good about what I have done with this team."

He should be devastated by the loss. It's pretty simple that anybody involved with a team at this level should absolutely feel it in their gut when losing a game like this, and anybody else doesn't belong competing at that level. As far as feeling good about what he's done, what exactly is that Mr. Ryan? Not losing 51 mostly meaningless games in a row (minus the 4 World Cup games, and remember, not losing doesn't mean winning, as the US actually lost to Germany in the Algarve Cup, albeit on penalties)? Well whoop-de-do, congratulations. You are now an asterisk in the history of American soccer.

Question: What coach led their team to 51 consecutive international victories without winning a World Cup or Olympics title?

Answer: Greg Ryan.

As Andrea Canales at ESPN.com correctly put it: "Solo directed a spotlight on herself that allowed the catalyst of the entire event, Greg Ryan, to escape from the glare." In effect, she sacrificed her place in a tournament that had lost it's principal meaning to herself to allow the team to go out on a winning note. If she had kept her mouth shut like Press Officer Aaron Heifetz had hoped, all of the attention would have been on Ryan and his decision, which would have meant that the players would have been playing to defend his reputation instead of Briana Scurry's, and I don't think too many of their hearts would have been in that endeavor when they were clearly as mystified as the rest of us over it." (U.S. Makes Solo The Scapegoat For Its Failure)

It's time now to return the attention where it deserves, Greg Ryan. He doesn't deserve to be sent packing just because he single-handedly jeopardized the future of our current best goalkeeper and unnecessarily sullied the reputation of our greatest goalie ever, but also for the embarassingly piss-poor job that Greg Ryan did of preparing this team for the Women's World Cup. Forty-seven of those "not losses" were completely meaningless, and any one or more of those games over the last 3 years would have been the time to invest the energy into experimenting with players and possibly lose one or more games in the effort to build a team up to the level necessary to compete with the Germanys and Brazils of the world (and the US teams of old).

For all of that Sunil Gulati needs to make sure Greg Ryan doesn't get the chance to do the same in Beijing 2008.

CORRECTION: The original version of this article twice erroneously referred to the situation in the first round game vs. North Korea when Abby Wambach was being treated in the locker room as having occurred with the US owning a 2-goal lead. When Wambach left the field the U.S. only led 1-0 and was losing 2-1 by the time she returned. We only tied the game on a 69th minute goal by Heather O'Reilly.

This somewhat undercuts part of my criticism of Coach Ryan's tactical decisions in that there is a significant difference between protecting a 1-goal lead and a 2-goal lead. However I maintain that it is still remarkable that any one player, and not even a defensive player at that, can be considered so crucial to a team's ability to defend and complete a game that her absence for 10 minutes can outweigh the perceived benefit of making a substitution. Ryan had so little faith in any of his first choices off the bench that he felt better off playing short-handed than to give any of them 40 minutes of playing time. Thanks to a Gayle Bryan at the women's soccer magazine, Fair Game who also was in China blogging for the New York Times for pointing this out.

Think I've got it all wrong or just have a comment? Let me know here and I'll make any modifications/corrections necessary, giving credit where requested.

*Some might call it cheating when Scurry clearly jumped off her line early, as much as 4-6 yards, every single kick, but you can judge for yourself:

**Mia Hamm was consistent to the extreme, having scored 2 goals in each of her 4 tournaments, starting in the 1991 inaugural Women's World Cup when she was only 19. In that first championship run, Ryan's predecessor as Coach, April Heinrichs, had 4 goals, while Michelle Akers netted an incredible 10. In the other championship tournament, 1999, 4 other players including Kristine Lilly and Michelle Akers joined Hamm with 2 goals each, while Tiffeny Milbrett was our high scorer with 3 goals. In 1995, Tiffeny Milbrett, Kristine Lilly and Tisha Venturini all scored one more than Hamm with 3 a piece, while in the 2003 edition, another 3rd place finish, Hamm's final appearance and Wambach's debut, Wambach came away American top scorer with 3 goals, while Kristine Lilly, Cat Whitehill (née Reddick), Cindy Parlow, and Shannon Boxx each tallied 2.

This year only Lori Chalupny and Heather O'Reilly managed to score 2 goals, with Kristine Lilly the lone other American goal-scorer with a single tally in 6 games.