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Former U.S. women’s national team goalkeeper Hope Solo will lead Solo FC at The Soccer Tournament, an annual winner-takes-all tournament that regularly features retired soccer players.
Solo’s participation in TST will mark the first time she has played since 2016, and she will also serve as the general manager for the team. Though there are no other players on Solo FC currently, the Women’s World Cup winner said she plans to recruit a varied mix of players that represent the global game for the competition.
“I’m trying to do something totally new,” she said in an interview with The Athletic that was published Monday. “That’s what the fans want to see. What I’m trying to do is bring together this worldwide, global team that shows the world that there are all these other diamonds in the rough. We’ll have some unknown heroines, for sure, players that are from communities or clubs or countries where the funding just isn’t there, or they certainly lack funding in comparison to the United States Soccer Federation of course.”
Solo earned 202 caps over the course of her 16-year national team career, winning the World Cup in 2015 and Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012. Her USWNT career was not without ups and downs, though, and ended on a bitter note shortly after the U.S.’ quarterfinal exit to Sweden at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The goalkeeper described Sweden as “a bunch of cowards” after they took a defense-first approach in that game, which later led U.S. Soccer to suspend Solo for six months and terminate her contract. Solo did not continue with her club, the NWSL’s Seattle Reign, after that incident.
She later went on to sue U.S. Soccer over violations of the Federal Equal Pay Act and sex status discrimination, though did so separately from her former national team colleagues. Solo also objected to the equal pay agreement the federation and the players reached in Feb. 2022.
Coincidentally, Solo FC will take part in TST against the U.S. Women, a team that so far includes former USWNT stars Carli Lloyd, Ali Krieger and Heather O’Reilly. The U.S. Women won last year’s edition of TST, the first in which a separate women’s tournament was held at the same time as the men’s competition.
Sixteen women’s teams will take part in TST this year, which is a seven-a-side tournament with 20-minute halves. This year’s tournament will take place from June 4 to 9 in Cary, N.C.