U.S. Women Promise New Style at Olympics

• Sports Illustrated, Thursday, July 31, 2008 5:30 PM

"Lost in the sturm und drang over the Hope Solo affair at last year's Women's World Cup was a painful truth: The U.S. was playing ugly soccer," writes Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl, who looks forward to the American women playing a better brand of soccer under Coach Pia Sundhage, who took over after the third-place finish at the 2007 Women's World Cup.

In the semifinal loss - for which Solo was controversially benched by Coach Greg Ryan - "Brazil exposed the Americans' lack of imagination ... but even when the U.S. was winning, it was doing so with brute force, overly defensive tactics and a reliance on thumping long balls ..."

Wahl says Sundhage has junked the long-ball approach and instituted a ground-based short-passing attack that goes through the midfield and not over it.

"We stripped our team of everything we knew about the game of soccer and implemented a new style of play," Solo says. "It's supposed to be a beautiful game."

The Americans open their Olympic campaign Aug. 6 against Norway.

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