Former United States goalkeeper Hope Solo pleads guilty to driving while impaired

Hope Solo holds the record for most career clean sheets as a US keeper

Former United States goalkeeper Hope Solo has pleaded guilty to driving while impaired and says she is "slowly coming back" after undergoing an in-patient alcohol treatment programme.

The World Cup winner and two-time Olympic champion won 202 caps for the US.

"It's been a long road but I'm slowly coming back," Solo said.

"I pride myself in motherhood and what my husband and I have done day in and day out for over two years throughout the pandemic with two-year old twins.

"While I'm proud of us, it was incredibly hard and I made a huge mistake - easily the worst mistake of my life," she added.

"I underestimated what a destructive part of my life alcohol had become.

"The upside of making a mistake this big is that the hard lessons are learned quickly. Learning these lessons has been difficult and, and at times, very painful."

Solo, arrested in North Carolina on 31 March, was charged with impaired driving, resisting arrest and misdemeanour child abuse.

However the charges of resisting arrest and misdemeanour child abuse were voluntarily dismissed, her attorney told the Winston-Salem Journal.

Solo requested that her induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame was postponed in late April.