Hope Solo doesn’t seem to ever be lacking in confidence, and when her former women’s soccer league folded, she considered another option. And that option shows that she really believes in herself.
“I thought about it (playing in a men’s league) when our league folded,” Solo told Goal.com. “I thought about playing for a lower-division men’s club team in St. Louis.”
“And I do believe I would have been able to take care of myself and handle my own if it was a lower division.”
Solo says female players should be allowed to play for men’s teams and believes soccer will become mainstream in the United States. The current Seattle Sounders women’s team goalkeeper is the face of USA women’s soccer, which became very mainstream this past summer. It could very well again this summer with the Olympics in London.
Some matches with/against men may be the perfect thing to escalate the sport’s Q Rating. Remember the famed “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match in 1973? I don’t either, I wasn’t born yet, but I have read about it, with Bobby Riggs and his “Chauvinist Pig” t-shirt. And what a controversy that was, and nothing sells like controversy. Maybe Solo appearing in an MLS game is exactly the infusion that Major League Soccer needs?
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site that generates millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
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