The Lament Goes On

I have long lamented the fact that the United States has some of the best athletes in the world, but recently we seem unable to win world championships in team sports. The list of recent losses is long and horrifying.

Today, the United States women’s soccer team took the filed against Brazil in the semi-finals of the World Cup. USA was ranked 1st in the world, Brazil was ranked 8th. United States coach Greg Ryan replaced goalie Hope Solo, who had not allowed a goal in over 300 minutes in the tournament, with Brianna Scurry, who at one time in her career, was undoubtedly the best goalie in the world. The result: Brazil dominates the United States, winning 4–0, and the United States is eliminated from gold medal contention and will have to compete for the Bronze. ESPN’s announcers were all very critical of the move and suggested that this move caused a major disruption to team chemistry. But to be honest, Brazil was the better team, and their 21 year old forward Marta’s second goal was so brilliant that it made watching the two hour game all worthwhile.

While the United States continues to struggle, one can hope that these defeats will lead to the appropriate changes that will propel our teams to Olympic gold medals in 2008. In the meantime, I once again am left to revel in USA Women’s Softball World Championship last year (there is no World Championship tournament this year), the only USA team to win a gold medal in a team sport in the last two years. Cat Osterman’s one-hitter and Jessica Mendoza pumping her fist after hitting a two run homerun in the sixth inning of the championship game are indelible images in my mind. Let’s hope the other USA teams provide some new indelible images soon.