MOTIVATION
Disparaged U.S. players sure to respond
Sweden coach gives USA bulletin board material,
If the Americans beat Sweden on Friday night, another win ought to be added to Pia Sundhage’s tally with the U.S. women.
Jill Ellis won’t need to say a word to her team before the crucial Women’s World Cup game, not after the less-than-flattering comments Sundhage made about some of her former players. She described Carli Lloyd as emotionally fragile, called Hope Solo one of the most challenging players she has ever coached, “especially when it comes to trouble.”
As for Abby Wambach, who has scored more goals than any other woman — or man — to play the game, Sundhage said she wouldn’t get anywhere near the starting lineup if she was still coaching the USA.
Ouch. Are those turf burns on Lloyd, Solo and Wambach or tire tracks?
Sundhage didn’t say this to an outlet in Sweden, where she’s the national team coach, mind you. No, she made the comments to
The New York Times, guaranteeing the U.S. players would hear about them within five minutes of the story hitting the Internet Tuesday.
Turns out, it took all of about five seconds. On Fox Sports’ Women’s World
Cup Tonight show Tuesday, former national team member Heather Mitts said she had already gotten a text from Lloyd.
“Carli Lloyd is aware of the words that Pia has said about her,” said Mitts, now an analyst after playing for Sundhage on the teams that won gold in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
“And Pia — you’ve unleashed the beast.”
U.S. Soccer did not make Lloyd, Wambach or Solo available Wednesday, instead bringing out Lori Chalupny and Julie Johnston.
Perhaps it’s coincidence U.S. Soccer chose two of the players who would have little to say about Sundhage — Johnston never played for her, and concussions kept Chalupny off the national team from late 2009 to 2014. Or maybe the federation is simply weary of fending off controversy after being skewered the last few days for the way it handled — or, rather, didn’t handle — Solo’s domestic violence arrest.
No matter, however, because this latest furor won’t die down until the final whistle sounds Friday. The players will see to that.
Athletes find motivation in all sorts of places. Sometimes it’s wanting to make family and friends proud — or fear of letting them down. Sometimes it’s that voice raging inside their heads, telling them they’re not good enough.
And sometimes — oftentimes — it’s slights, real and imagined. Sundhage’s comments fall into that category, and the Americans will be carrying a chip on their shoulders the size of Canada.
“It isn’t something I’ve talked about with the team,” Ellis said Wednesday. “I just think they’re an incredibly professional group.”
Professional, sure. But human, too.
Sundhage was the U.S. coach for five years, taking them to the finals of three major tournaments in a row. The players believed in her, and, as part of that, they trusted her to have their backs. That doesn’t get tossed aside simply because Sundhage is standing on another country’s sideline, and hearing how little she thinks of some of them can’t help but sting.
Now, some coaches would do this in hopes of riling up an oppo- nent and throwing the players off their game. Yes, Jose Mourinho, I am talking to you.
But Sundhage isn’t that Machiavellian. Odds are, she didn’t tell the Times anything she wouldn’t tell the players to their faces. She has always been a straight shooter, someone who sees no value in sugarcoating things, and that was one of the qualities that endeared her most to the Americans.
Well, that and her guitar playing.
Sundhage might very well be right, too.
Lloyd is still bothered enough by Sundhage’s decision to bench her just before the London Olympics to make a crack about it Sunday.
And Solo’s lengthy list of offthe-field troubles would even try the patience of the Zen master himself, Phil Jackson.
But it’s one thing to criticize a player when you’re within the confines of the team bus. It’s quite another to throw her under it.
Sundhage always did have a way of getting the Americans up for their biggest games, and it’s clear she hasn’t lost her touch. It’s a gift she might come to regret.