July 26 – Despite the off-field drama of Canadian drone spying, Israel’s participation in the men’s competition and Moroccan fan violence, the Paris 2024 Olympic tournament for both men and women is underway.
With the men’s results on the Wednesday going pretty much to expected form (apart from Morocco’s controversial win over Argentina), the women’s competition – which has full national team participation and is a major competition in the women’s international calendar, similarly opened with all the ‘big’ nations recording victories.
Olympic champions Canada, despite their off-field management troubles, secured a comeback 2-1 victory over New Zealand to open their Olympic Gold defence.
In the other fixture in Group A, France dodged a tense comeback from Colombia after their three-goal first half haul was almost undone. With the score at 3-2 with minutes left to play, Colombia and Chelsea winger Mayra Ramirez saw red, putting the chance of completing the comeback on permanent hold.
Heading into the next round, Canada and France sit top of Group A on three points each ahead of their clash scheduled for this Sunday.
World Champions Spain opened their Olympic account in group C with a win over Japan in a hard-fought victory that saw them overcome an unlikely Japanese opener in the 13th minute.
With the final score settling at 2-1 to Montse Tome’s side, Spain continue their almost-impeccable streak of results that has seen them victorious in nine of their last ten games – marking them firmly as the tournament favourites.
The Spaniards’ next target, Nigeria, were defeated 1-0 by Brazil in the opening round and face a tough challenge to get some points on the board this Sunday.
In Group B, the much-talked about takeover of the US team by former Chelsea coach Emma Hayes saw them comfortably overcame Zambia 3-0 in their first step of their quest to return to the top of the global women’s game.
Trinity Rodman opened the scoring, followed by a quick-fire brace from teammate Mallory Swanson to put USA 3-0 up within 25 minutes. Zambia were never really at the races as the US missed chance after chance.
Zambia were reduced to ten players after the 33rd-minute sending-off of defender Pauline Zulu, but were saved further embarrassment as the US took their foot off the gas in the second half.
“This is an opportunity for the whole squad to realise that we keep sticking to the game plan and the tactical details within that,” said Hayes after her first victory at a major finals in her new role. “Sometimes when you play an opponent who goes down to ten and then they drop lower and then they start doing different things, you start doing different things.”
“If you’d have asked me at the beginning of the game, would you be happy with a three-nil win? I would have probably said no. However, for the performance and the chances created and finding the back of the net like we did, I shouldn’t be too hard on the players.”
The Americans had 25 attempts during the match and marked a big change on their performances from the W Gold Cup which often saw them scrape by having created few chancesbut ultimately failed to capitalise on all their opportunities. That lack of efficiency however did not seem a major concern just yet.
On Sunday, the United States play 2016 Olympic champions Germany in a blockbuster before wrapping up Group B against Australia. In France, the Americans are going in search of a fifth gold medal.
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