By David Gold
March 26 – United States women’s football coach Pia Sundhage has her sights set firmly on winning gold at London 2012 and has described the Olympic tournament as “special”.
Sundhage (pictured) will take her team to London a year after they suffered a devastating penalty shoot out defeat to Japan in the final of the 2011 World Cup in Germany.
She said she was happy her team had performed as they did despite the narrow defeat, as it had helped spur more interest in the women’s game.
“I’m happy that people care about the women’s game,” Sundhage told FIFA.com.
“I see this as something positive for the team I’m coaching and the fact that we played in the World Cup Final.”
Now preparing for the Olympics, the US sent a message to their rivals as they romped through qualifying for London 2012, scoring 38 goals without reply as they thrashed their North American rivals.
“It was nice to not concede any goals,” said Sundhage, whose team travel to London as reigning champions.
“We allowed the opposition a couple of good chances, but we have a very good goalkeeper [Hope Solo, pictured in yellow] and a great captain in Christie Rampone (front row, middle).
“We’ve been working on our defending quite a bit and we’ll continue to do that.
“I’m very happy and impressed with our defence, to play in a tournament and not concede a single goal is huge.”
Hoping to win their fourth Olympic crown, Sundhage told FIFA.com: “The biggest difference [with the Olympics] is that there are more games at the World Cup.
“The Olympics are something special.
“I can go and watch different games and teams.
“At the Olympics there are just 12 teams, so there are more possibilities at the World Cup.
“I can tell that the Americans see it differently.
“To win an Olympic gold medal you have to work really hard and overcome several obstacles.”
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