I would like to congratulate the USA women’s national soccer team on their 3rd place victory in he 2007 Women’s World Cup by defeating Norway this past weekend by a score of 4-1 .  Maybe it is me, but a victory for 3rd place just does not sound like a victory to me.  Does it sound better than 4th place?  I still do not understand its place in sports. 

Last summer, I was fortunate enough to be in Germany during the semi-finals and finals of the 2006 World Cup.  After Germany won the 3rd place match against Portugal, there was a huge celebration and Germans were so proud of their national team and hailed Jurgen Klinsmann a hero.    It was 3rd place!!!!   Should a team feel better about a 3rd place “win” than the team that loses in the finals and finishes 2nd ?? 

This is just another example of how “money talks” in sport as this is the only reason why in both the men’s and women’s World Cups, they still play this meaningless game.  Thank goodness we do not see 5th place, 7th place, and 9th place matches!  There is no place in sports for these meaningless victories.

I just do not understand that 3rd place victory feeling.

On Yahoo Sports, former USA national team members expressed their disapproval regarding decisions made by coach Greg Ryan  and comments about Hope Solo.

Both Chastain and Fowdy criticized Greg Ryan about his tactical decisions (especially during the semi-final match vs. Brazil), inability to communicate and prepare with his players and even called for his firing.    They go as far as saying Ryan is to blame for this major setback to USA soccer.  I could not disagree more with their comments.   They tend to forget that this is not the same team that they played on.  Their teams won because they were so much more talented with the likes of Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers, and the others.  This team is not as good as they were back in the 90s.  Its unfair to compare their results.  Plus, lets face it the world has caught up to the USA in terms of talented players.  Just ask the last few NBA Dream Teams about that.   Its easy to criticize tactical decisions when you get destroyed 4-0 in any match.  I do not agree that the goalie switch would have made much of a different nor would a different strategy have made a difference.  This current USA team did not have the talent OR experience of teams of past World Cups with Chastain and Fowdy.  It showed in their performance.  A socre of 1-0 or 2-0, thats a close game.  4-0 is a whipping in soccer.

As for Hope Solo comments, I have to agree with both Chastain and Fowdy here.  You never call out a teammate, especially someone who has accomplished so much more than you have in their career in Briana Scurry.  I do feel for Solo as this was her World Cup to shine.   She has been the top goalie for the USA since the 2004 Olympics and she definitely deserved to start the game against Brazil with her performances in the previous matches.  Nonetheless, the coach makes those decisions and not the players.  It may have looked like Scury played poorly, but really it wass those terrible USA defenders that allowed the Brazilians such easy scoring opportunities.  Solo should spare us the damage control response on her myspace page by saying she would never callout a teammate.  She clearly did that and I hope she can look to the future and re-establish herself as a leader and the top goalie for Team USA because they need her if they want to get back to being World Cup and Olympic champions.

If Chastain and Fowdy are so concerned about the US national team program, their comments criticizing the coach and US soccer officials is not helping the cause and in fact making matters worse.  Winning World Cups and Olympic gold medals is not all about talent and great coaching.  I think a lot of luck is also involved and I think they were just unlucky in the semi-final game vs.  Brazil as they ran into a red-hot and super talented Brazilian team that simply was not going to be stopped.