Carli Lloyd is one of the best players in U.S. Women’s National Team history, but all of her memories of representing her country in international competition are not fond.
Lloyd went off on the “culture” of U.S. women’s soccer during an appearance on the “Hope Solo Speaks” podcast with her former teammate. The two-time Olympic gold medalist said she dreaded going to work her last seven years.
“Even within our squad, the culture has changed. It was really tough and challenging to be playing these last seven years,” Lloyd said, as transcribed by Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post. “To be quite honest, I hated it. It wasn’t fun going in. It was only for love of the game, really, for me. I wanted to win and I wanted to help the team, but the culture within the team was the worst I’ve ever seen it.”
Solo, who was suspended in 2016 over some comments she made about Sweden, agreed with Lloyd. She said she always loved training but did not enjoy being around the team.
“I wanted to work my butt off. I wanted to play games,” Solo said. “But I didn’t want to be around everybody and the culture of the team. It was really difficult. I don’t think people understand how difficult emotionally and mentally that is.”
Lloyd and Solo likely wanted the U.S. team to focus more on their play on the field than issues off of it. If you remember, Lloyd was the only player to not take a knee prior to the bronze medal game in the Summer Olympics last year. Lloyd made it clear as far back as 2016 that she thought the kneeling was a distraction and wanted no part of it.
Solo was also outspoken about the kneeling. She said last year that Megan Rapinoe, who was the first U.S. women’s soccer player to kneel in 2016, tried to bully teammates into joining the movement.
Many people believed the disappointing bronze medal finish last year was a product of the team focusing too much on political issues. Lloyd certainly felt that was an issue.
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