Abandon All Hope

The Cowardly And Hypocritical U.s. Soccer Federation Might As Well Have Taken Hope Solo Out Back And Shot Her In The Head.

- John Doyle

GOALKEEPERS ARE DIFFERENT; SOME ARE IMPERIOUS AND AGGRESSIVE, AND OTHERS ENIGMATIC, WHEREVER THE GAME IS PLAYED, WHEREVER THE GRASS GROWS. 

Even at Richmond Park, the ground that is home to St. Patrick’s Athletic in the League of Ireland. It is a wee place tucked behind terraced houses in the very unglamorous Dublin suburb of Inchicore. Its stands hold about 5,000 people. I was there occasionally in my youth in Dublin. Not often, mind you. Richmond Park was hard to reach on the bus routes (it still is). It is uncomfortable, and if it rains, you’re soaked.

The ground has history, though. It is situated in the “recreational fields” used by the British Army when Britain ruled Ireland, and it became a soccer stadium—although stadium is too grand a word for it—when the British left Ireland after the War of Independence, in 1923. Thus it is a direct link between Irish soccer and the players who brought the game to Ireland. Those players, an occupying army, were at one time the enemy.

A dinky, dank stadium in the inner suburbs of Dublin might seem a strange place to begin a meditation on Hope Solo. But there is a reason. It is at Richmond Park that Brad Friedel, the first American goalkeeper to seriously impress in the English Premier League, spent time between the sticks in 1995. He was there for training only, while waiting to get a work permit to sign with Sunderland. Peter Reid, then the Sunderland manager, was a friend of Brian Kerr, then the manager of St. Pat’s. So Friedel landed in Dublin and trained, and waited. Refused a work permit, he became an itinerant keeper, going to Galatasaray in Turkey, which was then managed by Graeme Souness, who eventually signed Friedel to Blackburn Rovers, where he became a sensation.