Hope Solo: "We played a bunch of cowards"

Hope Solo needs to grow up - "Speak For Yourself"

Tough loss for the U.S. women"s soccer team Friday in Rio. The U.S. were eliminated from the Olympics bySweden on penalty kicks following an Olympic quarterfinal game that ended in a 1-1 draw.

Apparently, it"s not sittingwell with goalie Hope Solo.

Here"s more of what Solo had to say after the game concluded:

"We played a creative game. We had many opportunities on goal. We showed a lot of heart. We came back from a goal down. Im very proud of this team."

We played a bunch of cowards. The best team did not win today. I strongly, firmly believe that.

"Sweden dropped back. They didn"t want to open play. They didnt want to pass the ball around. They didnt want to play great soccer, entertaining soccer. It was a combative game. A physical game. Exactly what they wanted. Exactly what their game plan was. We had that style of play when Pia was our coach. I think it was very cowardly. But they won, theyre moving on. And were going home,"

Meanwhile, Swedish coach and former U.S. national team coach Pia Sundhagehad a stern reply to Solo.

According to Hope Solo, I think you should define what is a good team. Well, usually especially with the Americans a good team is when theyre winning.

And theyre winning all the time. Thats the best team in the world. But for once they didnt go the whole way through. We won the game. They played more attacking football than we did. We defend very well. And the fact thatit went to penalty kicks says something about our defending. U.S.played better in the attack, we played better in the defense. And at the end of the day we won the game and thats what all counts.

Its OK to be a coward if you win.

After the initial outburst, Solo tried to soften her earlier comments.

"Youve got to take your hat off to them because they beat us. So theyre going on, like I said, and were going home. They dont have as quality of players as the American team does or as Brazil does, so they have to play a way thats going to give them hope to beat a team like Brazil or the USA."

"And I think thats part of the tactical side of things. And Pia is somewhat of a tactician, so she dropped her team into a 50 and tried to hit long b***s. They could only really score on the opportunity for a long ball or on set pieces.So I guess you can say its smart, but I dont think its respectful to the game."

Source: http://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-oly-rio-2016-hope-solo-doesn-t-hold-back-after-u-s-1471031683-htmlstory.html