Post-Final Comments From the U.S. Women's National Team

Coach Pia Sundhage after the loss:

“It has been a bumpy road and it’s been absolutely wonderful. All credit to the players. In this World Cup the first game against North Korea, I think at times we played very well. We changed the starting lineup a little bit, with people coming in off the bench. There were great crowds, phenomenal atmosphere. If you just give the players and coaches a little time then we can enjoy the silver medal. The reason for that is that we’ve done many good things both behind the scenes and having players stepping up. I would like to take the opportunity to credit Germany with putting on a wonderful tournament. I think in the women’s game now we have different standards moving forward. This has been phenomenal, even though we didn’t win.” 

Abby Wambach:

 “Evidently it wasn’t meant to be. We worked so hard. We believed in each other through everything. The Olympics are right around the corner and we’re excited about that opportunity. Hopefully we can qualify and get to London. This is going to hurt for a while and I’m proud of our team. We never gave up. Congratulations to the Japan team. I think their country is very, very proud of them.”

Hope Solo:

 “It was weird form tonight. I definitely thought this tournament was ours and even at the end I thought we were going to close it. But things were strange tonight, you know. I don’t really know how to explain it. I go down with a little knee injury, there was a weird feeling about that time and then I get back up and it’s right off the corner, they score. Part of me wishes I never went down just to keep our team confident. Maybe I should have defensively brought the team back in and made sure we were marked tight on the next play. I felt bad that I went down. I think maybe we lost focus for just a second and that’s all it takes.” 

Read the rest of the comments by the team here.