Greg Ryan Fired as US Women's Soccer Coach
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by SSreporters
He deserved it. Yet it was so under the radar because of the NFL and the MLB playoffs going on. Greg Ryan, who had a 45-1-9 record as US Women's Soccer head coach, has been let go. The dismissal will be effective at the end of the year. Sunil Guilati, US Soccer president, had this to say:
"I'm not going to point to any one factor or one individual decision," Gulati said. "Obviously, coaches' decisions impact games. All that was weighed in."
I kinda believe it was the Hope Solo/Brianna Scurry controversy that had him let go. But you know what? I don't think it was just that decision. The fact that he didn't win the World Cup this year, to go along with letting Hope Solo back on the team was terrible.
Think about it, you have a goalkeeper who thinks she could've stopped all of the goals against Brazil, lashing out at her teammates, you kick her off the team, and then you let her back in???
As for their World Cup performance, I consider it less than stellar on US standards. They drew with North Korea 2-2, then won their next 2 games by a combined score of 3-0 (Sweden, Nigeria). They let England hang around before killing them, then Brazil kills the USA. That doesn't sound like the US team who plowed through everyone in past World Cups.
So Mr. Ryan, it's been a nice ride, but you didn't win a World Cup in that long unbeaten streak, so bye-bye.
