Hope Solo's outburst a major topic at Cup tourney - USATODAY.com
"...Solo couldn't play or train with the team and had to take her meals apart as the team shunned her. By Sunday evening, it was unclear if she would even fly back to the U.S. with the team she had been a part of for more than two years.
"The circumstance that happened and her going public has affected the whole group," said Kristine Lilly, a 36-year-old forward who played in a record fifth World Cup. "And having her with us would still be a distraction."
While Solo's actions were clearly unacceptable in a team context, there was a touching back-story that made her emotional reaction understandable, at least to one side in the public debate: Her father, Jeffrey, died of heart failure June 15 at 69.
She sprinkled her father's ashes in the goal box before every World Cup game on a mission to take him with her to a world championship.
"The only one who really knew me was my father," she says..."
Solo gets stomped for making some quite uninflammatory comments about it not being the old days and she gets shunned? That is really juvenile for the world's greatest sports franchise. The coach made a bone-head move and she called him on it. Shunned? Isolated? Is this a soccer team or a religious cult? Whew. The sports sites are hot with comments about this and I'd say 80% sympathize with Solo. Women's World Cup Soccer has taken a major PR hit.
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