Ladies and gentlemen, the following public service message is brought to you by your friends from D-Generation X, who would like to remind each and every one of you that if you're not down with that, we've got two words for you... Ryan out as U.S. women's soccer coach (sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
Greg Ryan is out as the U.S. women's soccer coach less than a month after his top-ranked team lost in the World Cup semifinals following a contentious goalie switch.
U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati said on a conference call Monday that Ryan's contract will not be renewed when it expires at the end of the year. The squad does not play any more games in 2007.
"I'm not going to point to any one factor or one individual decision," Gulati said. "Obviously, coaches' decisions impact games. All that was weighed in."
Good riddance. Anyone with half-a-brain knows you don't pull a goalie who's working on a four-game shutout streak without a good reason, and Ryan had absolutely no good reason for doing so. I still think it was unfair that Solo took so much heat for the aftermath when her coach was so obviously in the wrong for (metaphorically) throwing her under a bus, and I'm glad to see that she's been vindicated.
smark/net attack Advisory System Status is: Elevated (Holds; June 18, 2006) While the switch from Cena to RVD should alleviate some complaints, the inevitability of the belt's return to Cena (note where Summerslam is this year) and the poor initial showing by the new ECW are enough to keep the indicator where it is for now. The pieces are in place, though, especially on RAW, for improvements to be made to the IWC's psyche in the near future.