olympic previews: group A

The women’s soccer tournament at the Olympics is, essentially, snorting a miniature World Cup. You take the intensity of global competition, squish it from 32 teams down to 12, and play the whole thing over the course of just seventeen days. It’s gonna be a wild ride, so to help us all prepare, I’ve previewed it all.

Group B | Group C

We’ve been blessed with incredible teams stuffed into three incredible groups in a way that guarantees each game will be a must, and necessary, watch. Below I’ve dropped a quick look at the group overall, then identified two players from each team that I think will be vital to their team’s performance (with help from StatsBomb where relevant), plus ask a key question each team will have to answer.

Lovely, let’s Olympics.

group A at-a-glance

• 🇫🇷 France

• 🇨🇴 Colombia

• 🇨🇦 Canada

• 🇳🇿 New Zealand

On a recent crossover episode the great Sylvs of Shea Butter FC called this group “the least deathy group of death” and it was perfect. Sorry New Zealand, I love and will always remember you, but every other team will be pointing to their matchup with you as the one to get three points and robust servings of goals for their differential.

One of the three groups is getting three teams to the knockout round, and unless the Football Ferns can repeat their magical performance against Norway at the World Cup, it will be this group. Their primary hurdle, though, is that France, Colombia or Canada are not as unserious as Norway.