America ladies’s nationwide soccer group didn’t carry out as marketed in Tokyo.
The Individuals struggled out of the gate, dropping their Olympic opener to Sweden in moderately gorgeous style. The U.S. nonetheless managed to succeed in the semifinal stage, however its pursuit of a gold medal got here to an finish Monday with a 1-0 loss to Canada. It marked the Individuals’ first loss to their North American neighbor in 20 years.
So, what went mistaken for the U.S. on the Video games? Longtime group chief Megan Rapinoe put it in moderately blunt phrases after the loss to Canada.
“If I might simply say one thing, I simply suppose the gamers have quite a bit to take a look at ourselves about,” Rapinoe advised reporters, per ESPN. ” It isn’t like, ‘Oh, we did not play higher,’ and getting on one another, however we have to carry out higher, interval. We do not have juice as a result of the ball’s banging off our shins and we’re not discovering open passes and doing the easy issues.”
“We are able to deep-dive into analyzing, and I do know we are going to, however on the finish of the day, there’s all of the preparation you are able to do and all of the ways, after which there’s every thing else, and that is what we have been lacking. You may’t put a reputation on the ‘every thing else,’ nevertheless it’s simply getting it completed from gamers, from all of us.”
Rapinoe and Co. won’t go away Tokyo empty-handed. They will battle Australia on Thursday within the bronze-medal match.
