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U.S. Women’s Soccer National Team – Biggest News Stories of 2016

By Steve Fowler

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U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Loses to Sweden at Quarterfinals of 2016 Rio Olympics!

Games Prior to the Quarterfinal

The U.S. started the year off with convincing victories over teams like Ireland, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago in January and February 2016. They later  won the SheBelieves Cup in early March with 1-0 victories over both England and France, and a 2-1 victory over Germany.

However, the warning signs were there. On June 2, 2016, the U.S. played to a 3-3 draw on home soil to Japan, who was a player down for the last  33 minutes of the match when Ogimi was sent off for a second yellow card. On July 9th, they barely beat South Africa 1-0. However, South Africa’s highest FIFA ranking was 48th as of August 2016. This ranking is just below Trinidad and Tobago, a team that the U.S. normally “steamrolls”. However, it was possible that they were not “showing their hand” as far as strategies and did not play for a “convincing win” on purpose.

Once at the Olympics, they beat New Zealand 2-0 on August 3rd, and then defeated France 1-0 on August 6th. However, on August 9th, they tied Colombia 2-2 in a game where Hope Solo had 2 miscues that cost them the victory. However, one of the goals was brilliant shot by Usme and may not count as a “miscue” ,  but Solo completely botched the other play to allow the goal.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/rio-update-us-womens-soccer-draws-colombia

The Sweden – USA Quarterfinal

Which leads us to the Quarterfinal match with Sweden. The game itself has dozens of commentaries about coach Jill Ellis and some of her bizarre decisions to move Tobin Heath, the game’s best player, and put her on the defensive line. The substitution of Megan Rapinoe, a player who was recovering from an ACL tear, who was clearly not physically fit for 30 minutes meant she had to be subbed out again, thereby wasting a substitution completely.

But what also happened on the pitch seemed to be a complete lack of teamwork as the U.S. could not find a way to effectively break down Sweden’s “bunker defense”.

The game came down to penalty kicks in which the team lost 4-3 after the game’s 1-1 tie in regulation and overtime periods.

Then there was the aftermath of the game, in which Hope Solo infamously made the “cowards” comment, which was already covered in detail in the “Hope Solo Contract Terminated” article a couple of pages back.

By far, this was the biggest news story of the 2016 U.S. Women Soccer Team.

Here are some articles on this matter:

Great articles from other sources on what happened at the Rio Olympics:

  1. http://equalizersoccer.com/2016/08/13/five-reasons-uswnt-rio-olympics-loss-failure-ellis-solo-rapinoe-analysis-womens-soccer/
  2. http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/story/4-questions-for-the-uswnt-after-their-olympics-failure-081516
  3. http://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2016/8/17/12509378/us-soccer-fire-jill-ellis-uswnt
  4. http://americansoccernow.com/articles/playing-the-blame-game-why-the-u-s-failed-in-rio

What was your opinion of the Quarterfinal match?

Were there other news stories of 2016 that is worthy of discussion? Please leave your comments.

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