• Player Rating: 7.4
• Stream: Netflix
• Running Time: 1 hr 14 mins
• Audience: Ages 14 and older (language)
Hope Solo was the greatest goalkeeper of her generation — and one of the most problematic players ever to suit up for the United States women's national team. Part biography, part grievance, Hope Solo vs US Soccer lets Solo control the narrative. In her telling Solo is a flawed but good person who stands up for what is right. But the truth is more complicated than that, and when the documentary skips over key details it feels more than a little one-sided. Still, Solo has quite a story to tell, and the footage of her high school and college days makes this worth watching.
Hope Solo didn't have it easy. Born into a working-class household in Washington, Solo and her brother were kidnapped by her father when she was seven — her parents were divorced, and he took them to Seattle without permission. She remembers in vivid detail what it was like to watch the police take away her father in handcuffs.
Her father became a ghostly presence in Solo's life. While she became a high school soccer star, leading Richland High School to two state championships, he was homeless and largely living in the woods. But he attended her games and practices, and provided her with the unconditional love withheld by her mother.
Athletic excellence and emotional dysfunction: These two forces came to shape every aspect of Solo's life, from her career playing at the very highest level of the sport to her well-publicized arrests for domestic violence and drunk driving. They also provide the two themes that run through Untold: Hope Solo vs US Soccer.
From striker to goalkeeper
The documentary begins with a grievance. The opening credits run through all the United States national women's team players who didn't cooperate with the production and chose not to speak with the filmmakers. The implication is that they are too cowardly to back up Solo, who was unafraid of crossing swords with the United States Soccer Federation. There might be some truth to that, but Solo did a good job of antagonizing her teammates over the years, and it's easy to imagine that figures such as Mia Hamm, Alex Morgan, and Megan Rapinoe, were advised by their partners, lawyers, and therapists to put some distance between them and the former goalkeeper.
The title tells you what Solo wants this production to be: It's Hope Solo vs US Soccer, the story of the divisive but strong former player who took on the federation in the fight for equal pay for women. And it's true, Solo was one of the original plaintiffs who sued US Soccer. But the documentary is at its best when it explores the early years of Solo's life, when she was one of the best young strikers in the country.
That's right: Solo was a striker, scoring 109 goals for Richland High School. The early footage of a young Solo shows a player who was something like a Cascadia Erling Haaland, only in the blousy soccer gear of the 1990s. Standing at 6' 0", Solo was equal parts power and technical ability. Add to that the single-minded focus on winning, and you get one of the most devastating high school forwards in the country.
But she was transformed into a goalkeeper at the University of Washington, which she attended to be close to her father even though she had already committed to the University of Virginia. Would she have remained a forward at Virginia? It's impossible to say, but the staff at Washington believed that Solo's best chance of making the USWNT was by learning how to play in goal, where her size, natural athleticism, and winning mindset would help her develop into the best shot-stopper of her generation.
Hope Solo vs the world
It's a sliding doors moment: She went to Washington because of her father, and Washington turned her into the goalkeeper who would go on to log 102 clean sheets for the USWNT. Untold is at its best when exploring the early biography of the player, and including archival footage of a tall, striking young woman who spent much of high school avoiding her mother and instead crashing with the family of a friend.
It becomes a little more complicated when addressing tensions between the goalkeeper and her teammates on the USWNT. Solo replaced Briana Scurry, who had 175 caps and was a part of the golden generation that won the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. Solo takes issue with Scurry – and Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, Hamm, and everybody else from that golden generation who refused to cooperate with Untold – although her attacks are indirect. Solo turns herself into a victim who was too naive, too direct, too honest to navigate that locker room.
Oliver Strand
Untold is at its weakest when it allows Solo to write history unchallenged. The goalkeeper said she was suspended and later terminated by US Soccer in 201 not because of comments she made after losing to Sweden on penalties in the FIFA Women's World Cup, but because of actions she was taking against the federation to fight for equal pay for women. It's true that US Soccer acted deplorably at that time and were negotiating in bad faith with the players on the USWNT. It's also true that Solo was suspended the year before in part for "an incident during training camp" that came on the end of an unrelated confrontation with the police.
Those events came just one year after Solo was arrested for assault when she got into a physical altercation with her half-sister and nephew in June 2014. Solo addresses it in Untold, kinda. She owns up to losing control, but she takes pains to point out that her nephew was tall and as big as a linebacker — the implication is that he was giving as good as he was getting. She skips over the fact that he was just 17 at the time, and that a 24-year-old Solo who was at the height of her powers should have known better.
Did US Soccer sideline Solo because she was fighting for equal pay? Or because she was a lightening rod for controversy, a difficult and aggressive personality who picked fights not just with her opponents, but with her teammates, her family, and the police?
Untold: Hope Solo vs US Soccer | Clip
The player, the person
Solo was unquestionably one of the greatest goalkeepers ever to play the women's game, maybe even the greatest. On the collegiate level, she remains the best goalkeeper in Pac-10 history, and still holds the records for clean sheets (18) and saves (325). As a professional, Solo helped the Seattle Reign win the NWSL Shield in 2014 and set a league record of going 16 games without a loss.
But it's with the USWNT that she truly shines. Solo earned 202 caps, logging 153 wins and 102 clean sheets. She was awarded the Golden Glove in the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2011, and again in 2015. She was part of a squad that put together a 43-game undefeated streak that spanned two years. Solo earned Olympic gold medals in 2008 and 2012, and lifted the World Cup in 2015.
Hudson River Blue Staff
But, as they say in Untold, it's a shame that her controversies outshine her accomplishments. It goes back to 2012, when an argument with then-boyfriend Jerramy Stevens ended with the former NFL tight-end spending the night in jail — the two married the next day. It carries through to 2022, when Solo pled guilty to DWI after getting arrested in Charlotte with her twin two-year-old daughters in the car.
It's hard to talk about Solo the player without talking about Solo the person. Hope Solo vs US Soccer sets out to both, but despite clocking in at almost 75 minutes, much is left untold.
