Did The U.S. Women Choke In The World Cup Final? Hope Solo Answers

The U.S. Women’s National team has been in the midst of a publicity whirlwind since returning home to America, and during a stop at ESPN, Hope Solo and Alex Morgan sat down with Dana Jacobson, who asked them whether they “choked” in their World Cup loss to Japan.

As Jacobson asked the pair, “Reading tweets and I’ll even say here on set yesterday, the discussion that was brought up was, ‘Did the U.S. team choke?’ And there are people out here, it was said in this studio... ‘The U.S. team choked, you can’t shy away from it.’ When you hear that, what do you think?”

Hope Solo responds after the jump.

“Well first off, where are those people in the studio? I would like to see them face-to-face.”

Yep, Hope Solo’s pretty awesome. As she continued, “We always expect as a number one-ranked team to come back with the gold. With that being said, you know we were criticized for playing defense and relying on our athleticism to put the ball on Abby’s head to score and win games. But we weren’t possessing the ball, we weren’t creative on the attack... But we did have the American fighting spirit. So lo and behold, here comes the final. 60+ thousand people, the pressure can amount, the media coverage... Yet we played our best game. We were attacking, we had opportunities on the goal, we played beautiful soccer, like the game is meant to be played, in the final.”

“So did we choke?” she asked. “We played a beautiful game. We played our best game. But we didn’t come out on top. I don’t think we choked at all.”

And she added later, “I think people like to say that we choked because of the penalty kicks at the end, but, you know you have to be a soccer player to understand. To win two dramatic games in dramatic fashion in a major tournament over PKs is next to impossible.”

Whew. So, the obvious lesson: Whether you think they choked or not, don’t mention it to Hope Solo, because she’s not going to take it sitting down. You watch the rest of the interview over at ESPN, and you should, because alleged choking aside, both players seem pretty great.