It’s been a few days since the Women’s World Cup wrapped up and the USA Women’s Soccer team lost an epic final to Japan on penalty kicks.  At the start of the tournament, women’s soccer was an afterthought.  But, through the game of the year (USA/Brazil) and the play of stars like Abby Wambach and Hope Solo, the USA women’s team became the breakthrough phenomenon of the Summer.  Even in spite of not lifting the trophy, the team has been celebrated since its return stateside.  Solo and Wambach appeared on Letterman, Hope Solo is on the cover of SI this week, over 15,000 fans showed up in Rochester to see Abby Wambach sit on a bench, and Solo and Alex Morgan were at the Entourage premiere for some reason.  Hopefully the frenzy over the actual play of the USA team is a bit of a turning point for women’s soccer and women’s pro sports in this country.  The Final against Japan even had more viewers than the MLB All-Star Game believe it or not.  It’s a testament to the story of the team and also the great job that ESPN once again did in televising a World Cup with top pros like Bob Ley and Ian Darke running the coverage.

You just knew that part of the post-World Cup delirium would be players running through the infamous ESPN Car Wash for a more intense publicity tour.  I hesitate to show the following video from earlier this week because it’s for a certain afternoon show on ESPN2 featuring a certain blowhard radio host, but it’s a nice little video nonetheless.  Watch as Hope Solo and Alex Morgan can’t quite get synced together on what show they’re appearing on.  I can’t blame Hope for wanting to be on SportsCenter instead of SportsNation though.  It’s much easier to play world class soccer than walk and cut a promo at the same time I suppose…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iHXBUWf9Oc0?hd=1

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