Gone, Baby, Gone

So it looks like Sunil Gulati agrees with me: Greg Ryan had to go, so "Ryan's Hope" won't be renewed after the contract runs out at the end of the year.
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Ryan, with the egotistical "its-all-about-me-ism" that has typified his attitude towards the USWNT, went public today with a classic fired coach's "I'm proud of what my team did" presser. My distaste of the man's style aside it was only to be expected, not only because that's what fired coaches do; it was entirely in the man's character to do it. This self-exculpation is ugly but not shocking. And, really, it's not the point. The question is now: where does the USWNT go from here?
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One thing that U.S. Soccer needs to deal with is the ugly, archaic style of play that Ryan installed. If you read these soccer posts you know I've complained about this before (and even before that...) Now it seems like no-one hesitates to talk about the decay of the U.S. midfield. Here's Swedish team captain Svensson on the 2007 WWC edition of the USWNT: "Six or seven years ago, with Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy in the team, they would try to play the ball on the ground a lot more and pull teams apart that way. Now they just try to bang it up to Abby (Wambach)."
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One of the things I love about soccer is that it is - and traditionally always has been - a player's game. Soccer is still resisting the "coaching culture" that has made so many other sports so deadly, with team after team looking and playing alike as their coaches try and avoid the unusual and different so as to avoid being slammed for disregarding convention. Some of the sport's greatest players - players like Garrincha and Georgie Best - have been described as "uncoachable". One problem I have with the Ryan USWNT is that his team lacked it's own character. I believe he wanted a team that was an extension of himself. He got what he wanted. And when the team got in trouble on the field - the place in soccer where the coach can't go - the U.S. gals lacked the ability to take the game and make it their own.
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This, in turn, points a troubling finger at the captains. I've always respected Kristine Lilly as a player. But what happened, Kristine, when your coach made possible the most boneheaded decision a USWNT coach has ever made? Where were you? And after the first own-goal against Brazil? You were the field leader at a time when your team most needed leadership. Why didn't you give it?
Add to this whole nasty mess the last act of the farce: the pathetic punch-the-dummy post-WWC US-Mexico road show. If the USWNT had won the Big Prize in China it would still have been a trifle tacky but excusable victory lap. With the actual result and the team's disarray it seemed really tasteless, an "I-coulda-been-a-contenda" Globetrotter sideshow complete with Washington Generals stand-in, Mexico. To my immense pleasure the Mexican gals - mostly U.S. college players from Mexico - found it in them to slam a tired-looking U.S. squad with a 1-1 draw to end the kabuki play, with the U.S. midfield again gone missing and the American gals reduced to playing ugly Route 1 hoof-and-hope.

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The American team needs to look into itself. Regardless of who the next coach is - it doesn't really matter who the coach is - this team needs to find its own heart and soul. The rest of the world isn't going to play dead for the U.S. anymore. Our gals are going to have to get out there and kill for themselves. A great team has inside it the steely heart and focused mind of a killer. The 91ers had it. This team needs to find it for itself.