US women’s soccer team takes big hit with Rio Olympics disappointment

Written by Roshan Fernandez

When the U.S. women’s soccer team defeated New Zealand comfortably in their Olympic opener, the whole world sat back to wait for the U.S. to receive their gold medals. Naturally, the bar was set high since the U.S. entered the 2016 Rio Games as the two-time reigning Olympic champions and the 2015 World Cup winners. A solid 1-0 victory against France, who was deemed the only team that could compete with the U.S., and heroics from U.S. goalie Hope Solo had everyone convinced that this Olympic event was done and dusted.

But their tournament took a turn when the U.S. had a surprising draw with a very low ranked Colombian team. Solo conceded two goals in a somewhat shaky and uncharacteristic performance, but the U.S. was still satisfied since the result saw them through to the quarterfinals. Little did they know, from there on out, everything was going to go downhill.

Beating Sweden in the quarterfinals was supposed to be easy for the U.S. The Swedish players were supposed to be shaking in their shoes, fearing elimination. But in fact, it turned out the other way around. Despite the U.S. being relatively dominant, Sweden capitalized on the few chances they were able to create, forcing the game into penalty kicks. This is exactly what the U.S. was trying to avoid. Penalties are a mental game where there is no longer a favorite team and anything can happen. The U.S. was unlucky, missing two penalties and losing the shootout 4-3, but it’s hard to feel any sympathy for them. They failed to do the job in regular time and extra time; Sweden deserves a lot of credit for forcing the game into penalties and going on to advance, and honestly the U.S. was disappointing.

Although we saw many moments of brilliance and were wowed by the potential of the U.S., in the end they were unable to deliver the results. Unfortunately for them, this tournament will be remembered as a failure due to the fact that the players were unable to live up to their expectations. They let their fans down, they let their coach down and quite frankly, they let themselves down.