Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo contributed to USWNT team culture they criticize | Opinion
Two of the biggest names in women's soccer recently criticized the U.S. national team for its "toxic" culture.
Carli Lloyd and Hope Solo blasted teammates for not caring enough about winning and having me-first mentalities.
“What we had in the last several years was not a good culture and the mentality changed,” Lloyd told the State of the Union podcast. “It became toxic.”
Every player, coach and staff member contributes to the culture of a team — for better or worse. Lloyd and Solo played leading roles in the USWNT's greatest successes. The two players, integral to the very fabric of that team for nearly two decades, also displayed the same self-centered behavior they complained about seeing in teammates.
Lloyd told Solo on the first episode of Hope Solo Speaks — a podcast Solo described as correcting perceptions of her that “miss the crossbar” — she no longer enjoyed going to national team camps.
“To be honest, I hated it," Lloyd said. "It wasn’t fun going in and it was only for the love of the game.”
Solo commiserated with her friend.
"It's tough," Solo said of her time with the national team, which ended in 2016 after the goalkeeper was suspended by the U.S. Soccer Federation for multiple infractions. "I wanted to be cutthroat and I wanted to win. But you still have to play the political and social games sometimes. That's hard for an introvert like myself.”
There's irony in the hypocrisy when two former leaders absolve themselves of contributing to any negative team culture.
Hearing Solo and Lloyd in the same conversation admit to hiding in their rooms and binge watching TV to avoid teammates is telling.
It goes beyond being anti-social or an introvert and disrespects the very idea of "being a team" they talked about.
Lloyd described how she thought a successful team functioned.
"You can have the most talented people working for you and you can have the most talented player playing on the team,” Lloyd said on Instagram after backlash to her podcast tour. “But if there is no collective one or there is no collective goal, no team or business can be successful with a poor culture.”
Agreed.
For Lloyd and Solo — two of the fiercest competitors the USWNT has ever seen — the goal was to win at all costs, but there’s more to winning than what’s between the lines.
When the U.S. fell short in the 2020 Olympics, winning bronze at the Tokyo Games, it wasn’t Lloyd’s fault. It was the “team culture.”
In the same tournament, the entire team took a knee to protest racial injustice, not during the National Anthem. Lloyd chose to stand. Alone.
Solo, a Hall of Fame goalkeeper, has a stormy relationship with the national team. She was suspended from the team after the 2016 Olympics for being a sore loser and calling their opponents, Sweden, cowards after the U.S. exited the tournament without a medal. She then spent the last few years disparaging the team, coaches and federation.
Leaders are supposed to take responsibility for the losses and help the team move forward. Teamwork requires sacrifices. Believing you are right 100% is not part of that.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Carli Lloyd ends career as most impactful soccer player, man or woman, in US history
Lloyd has worked relentlessly at her craft and sacrificed valuable personal milestones, including her own family for a period of time, to become the best in the world. But soccer isn’t an individual sport, and although she lifted the U.S. in moments when they needed a ruthless goal scorer, none of her victories came single-handedly. Not even the 2015 World Cup final hattrick.
“In 2015, winning a World Cup put us on a big big stage. Endorsements came and … I just saw a shift in people’s mindsets,” Lloyd said. “It became more about ‘what can I do to build my brand off the field? What can I do to get an endorsement deal?’ and less about ‘what can I do when we step in between those lines?’”
But Lloyd also enjoyed the benefits of the spotlight, as one should. After her trophy-winning heroics, she saw a massive influx of endorsement deals beyond her Nike sponsorship, which also expanded during that time. She worked with Visa, Volkswagen, Heineken, Secret and released a memoir in 2016. All while wearing her signature “CL10” branded apparel.
And she got criticized for missing club games, her dedication questioned.
“I think what was difficult during that point is, I was trying to take full advantage of my opportunities and thinking long term and thinking about family, retirement and all these things, and a lot of media, a lot of people, were just trashing me,” Lloyd told Goal.com in 2021. "No one ever asked me why I'm doing all these things, or how it's amazing for a female athlete to be getting all these opportunities.”
So it’s OK for Lloyd to build her brand, but if others do it's a distraction for the collective goal and ruins the culture?
Lloyd should celebrate landing major deals and should enjoy the rewards of hard work, including being paid equally (That is a whole other topic Solo and Lloyd talked about after the $24 million landmark agreement between USWNT and U.S. soccer. But that requires 1,000 more words).
So should others.
The problem is, Lloyd and Solo don’t appear to understand their part in contributing to the negative culture they say the national team adopted.
Both players said they see a bright future with the current shift in the national team led by young players and coach Vlatko Andonovski.
“My wish to the next generation of players is that what I brought every single day, although never perfect, I hope they hold on to that,” Lloyd said.
But the next generation, already blossoming with team players like Catarina Macario, Ashley Sanchez and Mallory Pugh, is embracing a collective purpose contrary to what Lloyd and Solo displayed.
While Lloyd praised the young group for showing signs of a winning culture, the USWNT will fall at the same obstacles if they follow directly in Lloyd’s footsteps. Bring the grit, determination and passion of a Lloyd and Solo but understand it takes not just respect but self awareness and compassion for the people around you.
Rows of images fill Lloyd's Instagram with quotes about winning in spite of others, but words of her former teammate stand out on the page when looking for leadership.
"I want to leave a legacy where the ball keeps rolling forward," Abby Wambach said in a 2015 Gatorade commercial before her final game. "Where the next generation accomplishes something so great that I am no longer remembered.
"Because the day that I am forgotten is the day we will succeed."