For the US Women’s National Team (USWNT), the 2024 Paris Olympics represent a shot at redemption. A chance to reclaim their place atop the global women’s soccer world. The 4-time Olympic Gold Medalists and 4-time World Cup winners suffered an extremely disappointing 2023 World Cup campaign, failing to win our group and losing in the Round of 16 to Sweden (on penalties). That World Cup was only the second time ever that our women have failed to earn a medal at an Olympics or a World Cup – the other being the 2016 Olympics.

That disappointing campaign led to the firing of head coach Vlatko Andonovski. He’s since been replaced by Emma Hayes, who joined from Chelsea and is widely regarded as one of, if not the, best managers in the women’s game. Hayes has only had 4 matches in charge of the team since taking over, producing 3 wins and a draw. Expectations are high, with the USA second favorites to win the Gold, behind only 2023 World Cup winners Spain.

The Women’s Olympic Tournament features only 12 teams, but you know that means they will be 12 very strong teams as a result. The participating nations are split into 3 groups of 4 teams. In those groups, each team will play 3 games – eventually facing off against all the other teams in the group in a round robin format. The top 2 from each group will advance, along with the two best 3rd place teams, similar to the 2024 Euros. Those 8 teams will move into a single elimination knockout stage. A win in the first knockout game means you get to play for at least the Bronze.

For those who may have read our Men’s Olympic Soccer Preview first, the Women’s Olympic Soccer Tournament is a full tilt competition where the participating nations send their very best squads available. The pressure is truly on to produce results.

When Hayes announced the 18-woman roster, all the headlines were about the exclusion of Alex Morgan from the team. Many viewed it as a shift towards youth by Hayes, but this roster is still quite experienced. The team’s average age is nearly 27 (compared with ~25 for the USMNT in Copa America). The 18 players average just over 60 USWNT appearances, with 4 players having featured for their country at least 100 times (Lindsey Horan, Crystal Dunn, Alyssa Naeher, and Rose Lavelle).

We also have 6 women who were on the 2019 World Cup winning roster, all of whom also played in the 2020 Olympics. Their leadership will be crucial as we push to get back on the medal stand in 2024. A final note, only 11 players on this roster were in the 2023 World Cup roster – meaning 12 of the 23 players from that disappointing performance have effectively been cut from the team by Hayes.

Here’s the full roster:

It’s important to note that after the initial roster was released, Catarina Macario was replaced by Lynn Williams due to a knee injury. That leaves us with only 4 midfielders in a competition where we’ll play every 3 days. We can’t afford any injuries or suspensions due to yellow card accumulation in that part of the field. Color us nervous. 

Hayes got off to a flying start with back-to-back wins over world #20 Korea in April in her first two matches in charge.  We controlled possession, shots, chances created, pretty much any statistic you would want to look at. The first game finished 3-0 and the second 4-0. A great start to the Hayes era.

The WNT had two warm up matches before the Olympics. Results in those matches were a bit disappointing. The first was a 1-0 victory over Mexico. Keep in mind, Mexico beat us 2-0 in the 2024 W Gold Cup (our regional tournament) so getting back on top of that rivalry is a good thing, but we have historically dominated them. We have almost no “Dos a Ceros” against the Mexican women’s team because we typically score more than 2 goals against them. In any case, we completely controlled that game, with 70% possession, outshot them 17-3, and created 4 major chances. The fact that we only put 1 away is disappointing, and could be written off as a fluke if not for the similarities to the last match with Costa Rica. We drew that game 0-0 despite forcing 12 saves from the Costa Rican keeper.

Poor finishing in both of our last two games does not bode well heading into the tournament, but the performances were strong otherwise. The poor finishing is notable given that none of the World Cup winners on the roster are in our attack, a tidbit that Alex Morgan’s inclusion on the roster would have addressed.

Hayes has tinkered with roster and formation in her 4 matches in charge. It seems as though she’s yet to settle on a preferred team, but we believe Hayes is likely to feature a front 3 of Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, and Mallory Swanson. Lindsey Horan, Sam Coffey, and either Korbin Albert or Rose Lavelle will likely patrol midfield. The defensive line is a bit harder to predict, but the center back pairing of Tierna Davidson and Naomi Girma looks set. Emily Fox and Crystal Dunn are likely to start at right and left back, respectively.

We open our Olympic campaign with 64th ranked Zambia on Thursday, July 25. The USA will be heavily favored in that match. Zambia did qualify for the 2023 World Cup, losing 5-0 to perennial powerhouse Japan and again 5-0 to eventual champions Spain. Zambia did beat Costa Rica 3-1 in their final group stage game. Watch out for Barbra Banda, whose brace against Morocco sealed qualification for Zambia. Still, the market is not exactly backing Zambia to make a run, with the longest odds of any of the 12 teams in the tournament to win gold, +10000.

From there, the group stage games get much more difficult. We play 4th ranked Germany on Sunday, July 28. Germany won the Gold medal in 2016, and have won two World Cup titles. However, Germany’s 2023 World Cup campaign was even worse than the USA’s, as the Germans were eliminated in the group stage despite a 6-0 opening victory over Morocco. The team is somewhat in limbo, with interim manager Horst Hrubesch planning to cede control to the incoming Christian Wuck after the Olympics. The market has them 4th favorite to win the gold, at +900.

The final group stage game will be against 12th ranked Australia on Wednesday, July 31. The Aussies made a fantastic run as hosts of the last World Cup, when enormous crowds in Australia propelled them to the semifinals. They will be dangerous in this group and in this tournament. The market has them mid table (+1600) to win the gold, but our view is they are undervalued.

You can find details on all the matches for both our Women’s and Men’s teams at the Paris Olympics at Dos a Cero’s USA Olympic Soccer HQ.

In short, very good. There has only been one Olympics in which we failed to medal, 2016. The expectations are to medal and to compete for the Gold. We have the experience, we have the talent, but the quality of competition in women’s soccer has obviously gotten much stronger over the last two decades, in part due to the smashing success of our very own women’s team.

At Dos a Cero we are worried about our lack of pace in midfield, which we feel got exposed at times the last World Cup, particularly by quicker teams like Portugal. If we can control midfield, we should medal, but we’ll again note our lack of depth on the roster in that position as a concern.

Lack of finishing in the final third in the last two games is a slight concern as well, but we hope it’s merely an aberration. Players on this team have scored 178 goals for the USA – that’s plenty. Still, there is no established forward with the strike rate (goals/appearances) of some of the past USWNT legends, Abby Wambach (0.72), Michelle Akers (0.69), Mia Hamm (0.57), Alex Morgan (0.55), Tiffany Milbrett (0.49), Cindy Parlow Cone (0.47), or Carli Lloyd (0.42). Jaedyn Shaw is off to a great start with 7 goals in 14 games (a 0.5 strike rate), after that Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson have the best strike rates with just under 0.4. Someone needs to step up to find the back of the net, consistently.

With all that said, we expect strong performances from motivated players in this Olympics. We have a new fantastic coach, we have extra motivation with the need to get redemption after the World Cup, and we have dominated games under Hayes. It’s a tough tournament but a medal is a must. Gambling markets are putting us at second favorites to win (+225, implies ~30% chance), just behind World Cup holders Spain at +175.

LFG!!