The US Men’s Olympic run came to an inglorious end today, as they were comprehensively beaten by 4-0 by Morocco. The scoreline is a bit harsh on the USA, but Morocco’s superiority in the match was never seriously in doubt.

In hindsight, our Keys to the US success should have included “get the first goal.” Once Morocco scored, it was always going to be a very difficult uphill climb given their ability to control the ball, which would obviously limit US opportunities.

The first goal was frustratingly avoidable. First, Harriel was backtracking and had easily gained control of a Moroccan through ball. He had the opportunity to either play it out for a corner, shield it out for a goal kick, or even play a back pass to Schulte. Instead, he played it out for a needless corner. The resulting corner was half cleared 3 times in a row, then Harriel made a rash challenge on the edge of the penalty area in a position that was not particularly dangerous. Morocco’s talisman, Rahimi, went down easily, but Harriel kicks the underside of Rahimi’s leg on the play and is nowhere near the ball. It’s soft but it’s a penalty. In the image below, Harriel’s leg is moving up, and he clearly kicks Rahimi immediately after, you just can’t see it in a still image. 

It felt like that sealed our fate today. To be clear, we’re not pinning this loss on Harriel. He was at fault for that specific play, but we were already being stretched and pressured and it felt like a breakthrough was inevitable at some point. The question was whether we could snag one against the run of play before it came.

We had one golden opportunity to tie the game in the 59th minute, when Zimmerman headed a Tessman cross back across goal. The ball landed at Robinson’s feet, but he put it well wide. Truly the finish of a center back.

That was the last time it felt like the US had any chance. Morocco scored in the 63rd, again in the 70th, and VAR rubbed salt in our wounds by awarding a second PK against Harriel in the 91st. And just like that, our Olympic dream had turned into a nightmare. 

If we want to paint an optimistic picture of the Men’s Olympics, it’s certainly possible. Our two losses came to two of the best young teams in the world. The performance against France was actually pretty good despite the result. Even after accepting that our best young players from Copa America were never going to be able to participate because they need an offseason, we still weren’t able to put our best foot forward in this tournament due to injuries and clubs not releasing players. We smoked Guinea and New Zealand, and a handful of these young players look capable of making the jump to the full national team.

We can also paint a pessimistic picture as well. We didn’t just lose to Morocco we got our asses kicked. It’s hard to see any of the guys on this team working their way into our starting 11 for the full national team, they look more like squad depth, and the senior team needs a couple more studs in order to make it to the “next level” of international soccer.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. This performance is basically “as expected” for this team. They should have advanced from their group, but challenging for a medal was always going to be difficult. Spain, France, Argentina, and Morocco are on a different level from this team.

Still, there is no doubt in our minds that our talent on the field (this team plus senior team) has improved with this generation. The problem is…so has the rest of the world’s. We want to believe in this story that the USA is advancing at soccer faster than other nations because we didn’t take the sport seriously for most of our history. But other nations have improved too, and Morocco looks like the leader of that pack. They were great in the World Cup, and their next generation of talent looks equally impressive based on today’s result. Fodder for a future post.