Photo by Rob Kinnan/USA Today Sports
By ADAM TROXTELL
With her suspension served, Hope Solo is back with the U.S Women’s National Team.
Head coach Jill Ellis named the veteran goalkeeper to the USWNT’s 25-player Algarve Cup squad, confirming what was previously reported Thursday. Ashlyn Harris, who filled Solo’s starting spot for two games, was also named in the squad, along with Alyssa Naeher. Goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart was left off.
Solo’s reinstatement was approved by U.S. Soccer after she served a 30-day suspension after her husband, former NFL tight end Jerramy Stevens, was pulled over and arrested for DUI while driving a U.S. Soccer van outside of Los Angeles. Solo was in residency with the USWNT there at the time.
The squad also includes 18 of the players who competed in the Algarve Cup last year, and all but two of the players that competed in friendlies against England and France earlier this month. Shannon Boxx, who was surprisingly called in for those friendlies, maintains her spot in the team.
Midfielder Megan Rapinoe and defender Christie Rampone are called back into the team after they missed the trip to Europe with injuries.
Ellis will cut the squad from 25 to 23 players ahead of the tournament opener against Norway on March 4. The U.S. then plays Switzerland on March 6 before finishing Group B play against Iceland on March 9. The USWNT will depart for Portugal on Sunday.
Here’s a closer look at the USWNT roster for the 2015 Algarve Cup:
USWNT SQUAD FOR 2015 ALGARVE CUP
GOALKEEPERS (3): Ashlyn Harris (Washington Spirit), Alyssa Naeher (Boston Breakers), Hope Solo (Seattle Reign FC)
DEFENDERS (10): Lori Chalupny (Chicago Red Stars), Crystal Dunn (Washington Spirit), Whitney Engen (Western NY Flash), Julie Johnston (Chicago Red Stars), Meghan Klingenberg (Houston Dash), Ali Krieger (Washington Spirit), Kelley O’Hara (Sky Blue FC), Christie Rampone (Sky Blue FC), Becky Sauerbrunn (FC Kansas City), Rachel Van Hollebeke (Portland Thorns FC)
MIDFIELDERS (7): Shannon Boxx (Chicago Red Stars), Morgan Brian (Houston Dash), Tobin Heath (Portland Thorns FC), Lauren Holiday (FC Kansas City), Carli Lloyd (Houston Dash), Heather O’Reilly (FC Kansas City), Megan Rapinoe (Seattle Reign FC)
FORWARDS (5): Sydney Leroux (Seattle Reign FC), Alex Morgan (Portland Thorns FC), Christen Press (Chicago Red Stars), Amy Rodriguez (FC Kansas City), Abby Wambach (Western NY Flash)
Real reason Hope is on the squad is the lack of anyone who can replace her. The replacements in the friendlies hardly inspire any conficence. Wambach and the rest of the cronies had to tell Ellis and the US Soccer Federation to put her back on the squad. That is the best part of it since they don’t like her. Wambach said “We have to welcome her back” not we want to welcome her back.
As for her off-field incidents, since when is one adult blamed for the actions of another? Her husband is a D-bag but if he robs a bank or assaults someone is she to blame too? I like a bit of a wild and nasty streak in a GK and she has that. Solo back means we have a chance to win the world cup if puppet Ellis would get the guts to stand up to her old crew of cronies starting with ” you are not a starter anymore so sit down,” Wambach.
ITS GOOD
JURGUNN SAYS WE NED MORE NASTINES PLAYERS
SHE CAN PLAY FOR JURGUNN WITH JONES
This isn’t the last of the off-field drama from Hope Solo, guaranteed. What’s next? Another DV incident? DUI? Just wait and see…..
The Lindsay Lohan of women’s soccer.
+1
Can you say train wreck?
Double standards! If it were a man he would be in jail!
In jail for what?
The assault charges were recently dropped because her accusers were a joke, changing their testimony and refusing judges orders.
I agree saying she belongs in jail is a bit harsh if not irresponsible. However, Solo has a long history of being grossly irresponsible, violent. and alcohol/drug problems. She is hardly cut from a different cloth than the people she gets into altercations with. If anything, she as big a joke as they are in her personal life.
Obvious troll is obvious. /ignore
The usual over reaction. Joey Barton reportedly hit a player in today’s game, has been convicted of assault in a bar and makes Hope Solo look like a model of good behavior and yet still plays regularly in the EPL. Now there’s your double standard. Somebody once said if there was a 7 footer who killed his mother you could still find a basketball coach who would sign him to a contract. James Winston is a likely top draft choice after his sexual assault charge mysteriously disappeared. The list of transgressions by male players would fill a book and most of them continue to play and get paid huge sums. Solo is in the position of being about the only women’s soccer player to get into trouble so she sticks out. I’m not defending her behavior, but it pales in comparison to what has gone on for decades in male sports. Here’s a great example. I believe it was in the 1920’s when Ty Cobb was in his heyday for the Detroit Tigers and he was getting heckled from the stands. He climbed into the stands and beat up the heckler, a cripple in a wheel chair. I don’t believe he suffered any repercussions. If you check the record Solo has been convicted of 0 crimes that I am aware of.
That was the least of what Cobb pulled. The man was a horrible, horrifying human being, on a level Solo has never aspired to.
I’m not sure Solo is “horrible”, either, just…no filter/no ground-wire. Her dad was literally crazy – a homeless man who lived in the woods. He’d show up to her soccer games and she’d give him Macaroni and Cheese so he had something to eat. He died right before that incident that got her kicked off the USWNT team for awhile – she was sprinkling his ashes around her goal, and then she’d play out of her mind, making just inhuman saves. Then the idiot coach benched her and her replacement let in four goals and Solo said – publicly – “I would have made those saves.” Mostly because she would have. Coach kicked her off the team…which was a shockingly bad example of poor man (or woman, in this case) management.
She’s a loose cannon, but she’s more complicated than people get, too.
Check your Ty Cobb facts.
Okay, here’s the full story. It was 1912 and I made a mistake, he wasn’t in a wheel chair, but was handicapped, having only one hand (and that hand was missing 3 fingers). When people complained about this to Cobb, he said he would have done it if he had no feet. In 1907 Cobb assaulted a groundskeeper who tried to shake his hand. When the wife’ of the victim tried to intervene, he choked her. He also assaulted a worker who complained because Cobb walked on some freshly poured asphalt. He was also a notorious racist and played the game as if he were at war (his own words). And he got the most voters in the first vote for the Hall of Fame.
You’re a fool.