Hope Solo - Is She the Future Keeper for Tom Sermanni and Team USA?

The 2012 Edition of REAL SPORTS Most Important Moments in Sports edition raises a question that should spark debate and interest among women's national soccer team fans and players. With Tom Sermanni being named the new head coach as of Oct. 30, replacing Pia Sundhage, who left to coach her native Sweden following the Olympic win, is Hope Solo his keeper going forward?

Heading into the next World Cup/Olympic cycle, Sermanni has many questions to answer – among them is Hope Solo, the enigmatic publicity magnet whose glibness and off-field demeanor continued to attract the spotlight in 2012, the goalie for the future? She’s the best in the world, and has the stats back it, but with plenty of goalkeeping talent waiting in the wings, is the media attention regarding her on and off-the-field issues, rather than the team’s on-field results, worth keeping when one star goes to no great pains to align herself with the rest of the squad?

Should she be replaced, it likely won’t be the end of her career.  Now that a third professional league, National Women’s Soccer League,  is in the works, she’ll certainly find herself on a roster as a big name draw. Read more about women’s soccer in the year-end 2012 Most Important Moments in Sports edition by REAL SPORTS (www.realsportsmag.com). 

Content: Chelsea Janes/Amy Love, Photograph: ISI Photos / John Todd

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