I love reading books written by my favourite football players and you will know from my 'I only read football books' blog post recently that I have quite the collection to get through. One of the first books I tackled was Carli Lloyd's When Nobody was Watching and then I moved onto Hope Solo's book Solo : A memoir of Hope.
To me Hope is definitely one of the greatest goalkeepers the women's game has ever had and to be honest I think she is even better than some of the men's 'keepers. I was really excited to sit down with this book as it is safe to say it was going to be an interesting read as Hope has definitely had an interesting life.
The book isn't just about her playing football, it also delves into her family life and especially her relationship with her dad, which is great to look into as it goes to show you that even the strongest players have issues off the field but continue to play at their best. It also gives a little bit of an insight into what made her into the person she is today which certainly isn't the pantomime villain she is painted out to be.
It also gives you an insight into the behind the scenes of previous USWNT teams which was possibly the most shocking part for me. Having to read about what Hope was put through by her teammates due to her giving her opinion, no player should have to go through that and have to deal with it for a long period of time.
Hope is not afraid to stand up and speak out to defend what is wrong which caused rifts with other players but the Federation also seems to target Hope more than anyone else as she gets heavy punishments compared to others who get let off lightly. Take a section from the book as an example, Hope was fined for speaking out against an official, she got a $2,500 dollar fine, a game suspended & community service where as just a year previous Tony DiCicco only got a $200 dollar fine for a similar issue.
The book also goes into a bit more detail about Hope's shoulder injury and the pain she went through when playing and training. I knew she had surgery on her shoulders in the past but I didn't realise just how bad it was but you get more of an insight to how bad and to me it just makes me appreciate Hope a whole lot more.
Like I say though it isn't just football that is spoken about in the book, you also find out more about her journey through Dancing with the Stars which she definitely surprised people with her 4th place finish whilst still playing football at the same time as the competition. But even on that show she was made out to be the villain with scenes edited to make her the bad guy once again but by reading this book you really do get her side of the story which you wouldn't see on screen.
Reading this book has just given me more admiration for Hope but I really would love an updated version as this book was published in 2013 so not long after the Olympic win. I would love to see her take on the 2015 World Cup win, her dismissal in 2016 and that legal battle that was eventually dropped.
Hope had definitely been through a lot but she always comes back fighting, if you can I would highly recommend giving this book a read for yourself.
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