If Hope Solo is complaining out loud to the press, we may have a hint of why Ryan took her out of the game. In my experience it is very unusual for a US WWC player to complain in public about a coach's decision. Ah well, my guess is that she won't have Ryan to complain about much longer. The weak play of the US women throughout the tournament and the flawed decision to substitute Scurry for Solo look like career stoppers to me.

And maybe it's because some of the earlier messages in this thread have waxed political, I just can't get this gem of an anecdote off my mind: President Bush was getting his morning news briefing (remember, he claims not to read the papers himself -- they are summarized for him by his staff). His aide reports, "The last item, Mr. President, is a report from South America that a plance crashed and several Brazilians were killed." "Ohmigod," exclaimed the President, "That's awful. By the way, how many is a brazilian?"