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olympic previews: group B
uswnt, zambia, germany, australia
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.
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 B at-a-glance
🇺🇸 United States
🇿🇲 Zambia
🇩🇪 Germany
🇦🇺 Australia
Now this is how you do a group of death. A couple former powerhouses in transition, an underdog with two outrageous attacking talents, and a team coming off its best ever finish at a World Cup. This is the kind of chaos I like to see, tysm soccer deities.
Germany have already lost to Zambia this year, and recently lost to Iceland 3-1 in EUROs qualifying prior to the Olympics. The USWNT had their worst ever finish at a World Cup and is finally getting their Emma Hayes Era underway. Zambia’s Racheal Kundananji currently has the distinction of commanding the highest transfer fee for a women’s player, and her teammate Barbra Banda has hit the NWSL like a goal-hoarding asteroid. Australia made it to the semifinals of a home World Cup and missed out on their first medal in the last Olympics, thanks to a wild 4-3 loss a very poor performing USWNT.
What I’m saying is watch every single match this group has to offer. The intrigue will be on a hundred million.
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