If soccer is like a religion, then its most effective missionaries are its international teams. What has turned this weird sport, invented some two centuries ago on a backwards island floating in the Atlantic Ocean, into maybe the world's most widely and devoutly followed practice are (uh, in addition to the game's initial, globe-spanning seeding that resulted from said backwards island's megalomaniacal imperialism streak) the major international competitions, which reliably and at regular intervals galvanize of the entire world.
The World Cups are of course the biggest of these mass conversion events. But in women's soccer, the Olympics have traditionally run a close second. With the lack of attention, respect, opportunity, and investment women's soccer has had to contend with in the fight for its existence and development, the large platform the Olympics offer the game—and, in turn, the elite play in the world's most popular sport that women's soccer offers the otherwise soccer-starved Olympics—has been a major boon. The landscape-altering women's soccer boom we are presently in the midst of would not be possible without the consistent spikes in fandom that have accompanied every Olympic women's soccer tournament since the first one 1996.
But women's soccer in 2024 is in a much different place than in 1996. The international game has never been deeper and more competitive. There are a dozen or so serious, demanding, accessible, well-funded professional leagues across the globe that discover, cultivate, and display the world's ever-increasing bounty of talents. Club and international tournaments like the Champions League and the Euros have rocketed up in importance not just within the women's game itself, but in the overall soccer scene. Where there were once only vanishingly few chances to see women's soccer at its best, there's now more great, readily available women's soccer than anyone could possibly keep up with. All that wonderful growth, a significant chunk of it due to the Olympics, may mean that the game has now outgrown the Olympics.
In many ways, the trajectory of women's soccer mirrors that of the men's game. It was actually at the Olympics—the 1924 edition, coincidentally held in Paris—that international men's soccer first became a truly global sensation. But as the sport grew and the amateurism requirement hamstrung the Olympic product and the World Cup took over as the ultimate soccer competition, men's soccer had little need for the Olympics. Something similar could be underway in the women's game.
Even just structurally, there is a lot about the Olympics' setup that limits its appeal. The field is tiny. It's hard to feel like the world's game is really represented when there's only 12 teams in the competition, especially when compared to the 32-team World Cup. Hell, even the Euros has 16 teams! The small field also means that major players like England (or, as it would be, Team Great Britain), the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway aren't even in the running. How are you going to have a soccer tournament without Lauren James and Caroline Graham Hansen?
Not only is the tournament small, it's also ridiculously short. The two teams that make it to the gold medal game will have played six games in just 16 days. (The bronze medal hopefuls will have played the same number of games but in one fewer day.) To add likely injury to likely injury, roster sizes are capped at 18 players, five fewer than the normal tournament limit of 23. So some of the best teams and players in the world aren't in France this summer, the ones there will need to combat fatigue and avoid injuries of overuse to go far, and the entire spectacle will in basically every way be much less cool than what we all saw merely a year ago at the 2023 World Cup. Yay?
The injury factor is possibly the single biggest reason why women's soccer at the Olympics may soon go the way of men's Olympic soccer, becoming basically a youth tournament. Along with the explosion of interest and investment in women's soccer at the club level, we've also seen an epidemic of nasty injuries, often of the torn ACL variety. The physical demands on top players—across league play and domestic cups and continental tournaments and also all the midseason and summertime international matches—are extreme, and, as in the men's game too, are only growing, despite the clear evidence that players' bodies can't take the strain. It's not a good sign when some players and fans can see their team fail to qualify for a major international tournament like the Olympics and think that, in avoiding the increased risk of catastrophic injury, missing out might actually be a good thing.
Presumably we're not that far from the stakeholders in women's soccer getting together and agreeing that it doesn't make much sense to continue sending A teams to the Olympics. Thankfully we no longer lack opportunities to see the game's stars burning at their brightest. At this point the Olympics have become redundant at best and dangerous at worst. To continue growing, it would make sense for women's soccer to contract this tournament.
Now, none of that means these Paris Olympics won't be a great show. The one benefit of the small field is that there is hardly any chaff present. All three groups are cutthroat, and you could see almost anybody making a run at a medal. And even without Lauren James and Caroline Graham Hansen, the Olympics will have Sophia Smith, Jaedyn Shaw (my new favorite USWNTer), Aitana Bonmatí, Alexia Putellas, Barbra Banda, Mayra Ramírez, Linda Caicedo, Grace Geyoro, Asisat Oshoala, Marta, and tons more of the best, coolest ball-kickers in the world. Will Spain win gold and bolster its claim to being the greatest national team of all time? Will the U.S. claw its way back up to the top of the WoSo totem pole, or will the slide continue? Will France finally Do It at home? Could a single volcano spew enough molten lava and ash into the air to blot out the sun for two weeks if the volcano is named Barbra Banda? Can New Zealand do the funniest thing in the world and beat Canada on Wednesday?
Tantalizing storylines abound, and the best ones will probably be those that no one can see coming today. It's true that the Olympics are flawed and probably shouldn't be a thing going forward, but it is a thing right now, and what a wonderful thing this could be.
Group A
France, Canada, Colombia, New Zealand
Who Is Cool?
The coolest team in this group could very well fail to make it out of the group, such is top-to-bottom strength of the Olympics. Nevertheless, Colombia is very cool. The Cafeteras were expected to be a fan favorite at the World Cup a year ago and they dutifully complied, playing some of the most entertaining underdog soccer in a tournament full of it. The team's fortunes haven't quite been as rosy in the year since, and injuries have taken their toll. Nevertheless, Colombia's most important players have all made the trip to France, and in more or less good health, so the South Americans are well poised to at least bring the fun, even if concrete success might prove difficult.
With Colombia, everything starts with the attackers. Mayra Ramírez, Linda Caicedo, Leicy Santos, and Catalina Usme make for what is legitimately one of the strongest attacking lines anywhere. Get the ball to one of those four with space to counter-attack, and watch as sparks fly. Ramírez and Santos have struggled to stay healthy over the past year, though both are fit and available for the Olympics. Form might be a question, but if they're sharp, those four can beat anyone.
Where Colombia is much weaker is in defense. The team will sorely miss the absences of full back Ana Guzman, who parlayed an impressive World Cup into a big move to Bayern Munich, but who blew out her knee last fall, and defensive midfielder Lorena Bedoya, another injury absence. Bedoya especially was key in bringing balance to the team, making sure Colombia didn't concede too many goals during all the time it spent sitting deep without the ball waiting for an opportunity to steal it and send the front four rampaging forward. Without Bedoya and Guzman to bolster the back, the Cafeteras could find themselves forced into a series of shootouts. Ramírez and Co. are certainly equipped to win matches like that, and Colombia should like its chances to at least grab one of the three groups' two third-place spots that still qualify for the knockout rounds. Anything more will take something truly special, but if any team in this group has the kind of do-it-yourself stars capable of the extraordinary, it's Colombia.
Other than Colombia, France is decently cool. Really, the question for them is whether this is the tournament when they finally make good on the considerable talent they've brought to every tournament for a decade and actually win something this time. Once again, France has a team full of stars forged in the crucible that is the Lyon-PSG rivalry (11 of the 18 members of the squad currently play for France's Big Two). Once again, Wendie Renard, Amandine Henry, and Eugenie Le Sommer (103 years and 458 caps between them) are on hand to lead the way. Once again, Les Bleues enter a major tournament with totally viable odds of winning. All of this we've seen before. Now it's time to see if it ends differently.
Though veritable legends of the game, Renard, Henry, and Le Sommer's time with the national team has been a disappointment. Yes, winning is hard, but for all the talent the country has produced over the years, it's not too much to have expected them to at least make a final in any of the three major competitions they compete in. To be fair, France did put together a couple teams with world conquering potential a while ago, most notably at the 2015 and 2019 World Cups. France's play at the 2015 tournament really did look like the future of women's soccer, even if they were unlucky to fall on penalties in a quarterfinal against a great German team that France nonetheless dominated. Hopes were even higher in 2019, especially since France hosted that World Cup, but yet again the French got knocked out in a much-hyped quarterfinal by the soon-to-be champions of the USWNT.
The 2019 World Cup was probably this French generation's best chance at winning something, but it wasn't its last. Renard, Henry, and Le Sommer are still around, still excellent (well, Henry hasn't been at her usual best since her triumphant performance in the 2022 Champions League final), and are surrounded by a great generation in its prime and ready to cover themselves in glory in front of the home fans. Sakina Karchaoui is shockingly good, the kind of creative wizard from the full back position that you usually only find in Brazil. Grace Geyoro is one of the best all-action midfielders in the sport. Marie-Antoinette Katoto is at long last healthy enough to compete in a major tournament, where she hopes to bring the speed and finishing that has made her France's most lethal striker for several years now. This team is stacked, deep, and versatile, able to thrive in any kind of game. Granted, that has been the case before, and it's never resulted in ultimate victory. But there's a first time for everything.
Who Sucks?
The suckiest team is without a doubt New Zealand. The Football Ferns are in fact probably the very worst team in the entire field, falling below the similarly lowly Zambians due to the fact that Zambia has Barbra Banda and New Zealand doesn't. New Zealand even lost their best player to injury the day before the tournament started when Ali Riley had to pull out. In a group with three very strong teams that all will expect to make it to the knockout rounds, New Zealand is the designated patsy, the goal-difference team the other three will seek to run up the score on to ensure passage to the quarterfinals. New Zealand's realistic aims this summer will be to try to avoid three consecutive blowouts, maybe score a goal or two, and see if they can play spoiler by taking a point off of one of their three opponents. And even those modest goals will be hard.
Canada, on the other hand, sucks in a different way. The reigning Olympic gold medalists (barf!) will believe they can extend their consecutive medal count to four over the next two weeks, and they certainly have what it takes to do so. What they don't have is a great chance of combating their well-earned, and fittingly Canadian, reputation as being the most boring good soccer team in the world.
Objectively, the team is definitely good. Jessie Fleming, Vanessa Gilles, Kailen Sheridan, Kadeisha Buchanan, Ashley Lawrence, Quinn, Julia Gross, and Jordan Huitema are just some of the truly exceptional Canadians on this roster, all with very impressive club pedigrees. But there's something about pulling on the Canada's red jersey that robs them of any flair they might display at their prestigious European and American clubs and turns them into, well, Canadians.
Adriana Leon is the only cool attacker here. Where soccer at its best transcends the strict limitations of the sport to achieve a visual spectacle that achieves beauty and art, Canada tries to suck the expressive potential out of the game so that the other team realizes that they don't even like playing this dumb game, at which point Canada can sneak in a goal and win by the slimmest of margins. Canada can't even play fair against freaking New Zealand! New Zealand! This team sucks and I hope they lose early and often, though I'm prepared to be annoyed all over again when they somehow bore their way into another medal.
One Star To Watch
Mayra Ramírez is the best kind of soccer bully. She's not a dirty player at all, nor is she an expert in the dark arts of diving and simulation. Rather, Ramírez bullies defenses—not just defenders, I'm talking entire defenses—simply through her massive repertoire of skills. She can outrun you, out-muscle you, out-think you, flatten you, skip past you, score on you, and set up teammates to score on you. You can take your pick by choosing how you want to play her, but all are poisons, and the only antidote is the final whistle.
Thinking about Ramírez's bully ball makes me think about her last two appearances for Chelsea this past season. The first came in April, in the first leg of a blockbuster Champions League semifinal against Barcelona. Ramírez straight-up bullied the Barça back line in as masterful a performance you'll see from a striker who didn't get on the scoresheet. Chelsea stunned everyone by beating Barça in Barcelona 1-0 that day, and Ramírez was the biggest reason why.
Unfortunately for Chelsea, Ramírez picked up an injury and had to miss a month of action. In her absence, Chelsea's season started to fall apart. A week after that first leg, Barça came to London and beat Chelsea 2-0. A few days later, Chelsea lost a 4-3 shootout thriller against Liverpool in league play, which handed Manchester City a small points lead and a large goal-difference advantage for the Women's Super League title. City wound up stumbling though, and an 8-0 win over Bristol City got Chelsea back into the title race by eating into that goal-difference lead. Ahead of the final match of the season, Chelsea had to defeat a formidable Manchester United by a large enough scoreline to be crowned champions of England.
Ramírez made her long-awaited return to the field for that season-ender against United. By halftime she had put four goals on the scoresheet—two of which she scored herself, the other two she assisted—to essentially seal the title for the Blues.
This is the kind of talent we're dealing with here.
One Young Lady To Watch
Linda Caicedo is still only 19. It's useful to remember that fact when you think about how her star has dimmed some since joining Real Madrid. (It's also useful to remember that Real Madrid, despite what its name might imply, is a clownish institution in the women's game that doesn't take things as seriously as its team and Spanish soccer deserve.) It's not that she's been bad, and even there she continues to show flashes of the generational talent she's long been known to possess. But the early Caicedo, the one that wowed when playing for Colombia, appeared to be one of those young stars great enough to make context irrelevant. But as Kamala Harris teaches us, nobody is above their context, and you'd be coconuts if you wrote the Colombian off for not being a superstar at just 19.
Caicedo always turns up when in Colombia's colors, where her familiarity with her potent strike partners and her affinity for counter attacks lets her do the things she's best at. Jaedyn Shaw is probably the only other teen at the tournament with the ability to beat a big team by themselves, something Caicedo already proved a year ago. The Olympics would be the perfect platform for her to remind everyone just how good she can be. — Billy Haisley
Group B
USA, Zambia, Germany, Australia
Who Is Cool?
Zambia's coolness is not necessarily measured in its recent tournament results, but in the fact that it is in a position to produce those results at all. This is a team that qualified for its first Olympics in 2020, its first World Cup in 2023, and had appeared at the Africa Cup of Nations only three times before make a surprising third-place run in the 2022 edition. This is a team that, a few years ago, had no international profile. Simply having the opportunity to play historic powerhouses like Germany, Australia, and the USA on a global stage is a delight all on its own.
The work doesn't end at qualification, though, and that's a lesson Zambia has been steadily familiarizing itself with. Their first match at the Olympics was a rude awakening: The Netherlands beat them 10-3 in the first group-stage game. But they bounced back with a 4-4 draw against China in the next game, and managed a respectable 0-1 loss to Brazil in their final game of the tournament.
Zambia flew into the 2023 World Cup high on confidence before again being confronted with the harsh reality of international competition. Japan smacked them around, 5-0, in the opening match, and from there they had to march straight into Spain's buzzsaw, resulting in another 5-0 loss. But progress was made! Zambia did not leave its first ever World Cup entirely empty-handed, putting together an impressive 3-1 victory over Costa Rica in the final group game. No matter the circumstances, any nation claiming its first victory at the World Cup is a cause for celebration.
Now we get to see if Zambia's growth curve will continue in a positive direction. They certainly have enough talent to trouble even the best teams over the course of 90 minutes, and while the other teams in the group have history and pedigree on their sides, they also have enough cracks for a team like Zambia to exploit.
Who Sucks?
The USWNT sucks! Well, relatively speaking. Realistically, there's no reason for a team ranked fifth overall by FIFA and carrying multiple Olympic and World Cup titles into this tournament to feel too badly about itself, but past accolades can only keep the devil of disappointment at bay for so long. We all remember what we saw at the 2023 World Cup: a bunch of uninspired, stiff, lethargic soccer played by a team that was obviously losing its grip on the sport it had grown accustomed to dominating, resulting in an embarrassing and entirely predictable exit in the round of 16.
What's changed since then? Well, a lot and a little. U.S. Soccer canned manager Vlatko Andonovski shortly after the World Cup ended and replaced him with Emma Hayes, who had spent the previous decade-plus turning Chelsea's women's team into one of the strongest clubs in Europe. Hayes is an unquestionably great manager, one who any team would have been desperate to hire, and U.S. Soccer successfully prying her away from Chelsea was a legitimately impressive coup that signaled how serious the federation is about revitalizing the USWNT. If you're looking for a manager to preside over a full tactical and cultural reboot as one generation of players gives way to another, Hayes is about as good as it gets.
Having said all that, the first smattering of results produced by the Hayes era haven't been totally inspiring. Granting that she's only been fully in charge since the end of May, it still wasn't great to see the USWNT amble its way through a 0-0 draw against Costa Rica in its final Olympics tune-up match. The subtext of Hayes's pre-Olympic comments have edged much closer to, Let's all try to set realistic expectations here, folks than something more inspiring, like, We're coming to fuck everyone up and get our spot back!
And yet, there are plenty of reasons to feel hopeful going into this tournament. The roster Hayes has selected is full of young and exciting players (and also Korbin Albert) who should understand how valuable the opportunity in front of them is: If they really want to wash the taste of the 2023 World Cup out of everyone's mouth, they can do it by rampaging through the field in Paris and bringing a gold medal back with them.
One Star To Watch
Barbra Banda might be the coolest player in the whole tournament. The Zambian striker first started to make a name for herself during her country's first Olympics run, in which she scored two hat-tricks in the group stage. After returning to the anonymity of the Chinese Super League to continue her club career, Banda arrived at the 2023 World Cup ready to grab everyone's eyeballs all over again. She tallied one goal and one assist throughout the group-stage games, but the most important thing she left Australia and New Zealand with was the attention of the NWSL.
The Orlando Pride signed Banda in the offseason, and all she's done as an NWSL debutant is turn what was a middling squad into the best team in the league. Banda has played 12 games so far, and in those games she's amassed a league-leading 12 goals and five assists.
A lot of things stand out about Banda's game, but her greatest asset is her field-warping speed. There's at least one moment during every Pride game where an opposing defender will find herself in a 1-on-1 situation with Banda, and before they have time to really think about how they want to handle the situation, Banda has ambushed them with her speed and thrown them completely off-balance. This also makes her the kind of player for whom confidence goes a long way. Banda's the best player in the NWSL, and you can tell she knows it by how decisive she is in all of her movements, and how little hesitation there is when she has the ball at her feet while running at a defender. There's no player in this tournament who should be carrying as much confidence as Banda when the games kick off, and that makes her particularly dangerous. You think she's going to be nervous about facing Naomi Girma and the rest of the USWNT's backline in the opening match? You should see what she did to Girma the last time they met.
One Young Lady To Watch
Jaedyn Shaw is only 19 years old, and she may end up being just as important to Emma Hayes's reclamation project as any player on the USWNT roster.
Shaw made her professional debut in the NWSL as a 17-year-old, and quickly established herself as a key player for the San Diego Wave. She got called up to the USWNT roster for the Gold Cup earlier this year, probably expecting to just get a taste of action here and there, and she ended up being the standout player of the tournament, playing in six games and scoring in four of them. She kept her production levels up at the SheBelieves Cup, where she added another goal and assist in two matches.
Shaw has the speed, finishing ability, and physical strength that we've come to expect from USWNT attackers, but what makes her stand out, even at this young age, is her playmaking. There's a textured quality to Shaw's game, which shows up not so much in her goals but in her canny off-ball movements, her willingness to take up unexpected positions, and her desire to coordinate intricate passing moves. Shaw can do plenty of running and scoring, but the future of the USWNT can't be just about that. When I see Shaw float in from the wing, tuck herself between the defensive lines, demand the ball, and then roll a through-ball to a runner or initiate a one-touch passing sequence, I see the outline of a brighter future.
It's Jaedyn Shaw's world, and we're just living in it 🔥 pic.twitter.com/EeaS0wtv3D
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) April 28, 2024
The question heading into these Olympics and beyond is about how ready Hayes and her staff are to move Shaw up the team hierarchy. Hayes is still trying to solve the same midfield puzzle that has plagued previous coaches, and you can only play Lindsey Horan at the no. 10 so many times before something has to give. That something might be Shaw, if not now, then in the future. — Tom Ley
Group C
Spain, Japan, Nigeria, Brazil
Who Is Cool?
This category is a freebie when you have the reigning World Cup champions in the group. It's crazy to realize that this will be Spain's first-ever appearance at the Olympic Games, but the country couldn't be better positioned for an explosive debut. This side has few weaknesses up and down the field, and after a tumultuous path to winning the World Cup in 2023, the side has finally settled into a sense of normalcy.
It all starts with Aitana Bonmatí. The best player at the World Cup in Australia/New Zealand, and later crowned the best player in the world, period, Bonmatí is the engine that fuels Spain's possession-heavy, offense-oriented style. From her role as an attacking midfielder, the Barcelona mega-star is given free rein to do whatever she wants, whether that's create, dribble, or shoot. She can do and continuously does it all, and her performances jump up a notch in the Spanish jersey.
Bonmatí will also likely have fellow Ballon d'Or winner Alexia Putellas next to her in midfield, too, and the chemistry between the two Barcelona players is top-notch. Elsewhere, 20-year-old Salma Paralluelo looks to follow her breakout at the World Cup with another starring role at the Olympics. Her movement off the ball and her deadly finishing gives Spain an extra dimension when the death-by-a-thousand-passes approach doesn't quite work. The defense is stacked with young talent around stalwart captain Irene Paredes, and manager Montserrat Tomé is almost spoiled with attacking options outside of Paralluelo; it will be interesting to see how she fits Mariona Caldentey, Jenni Hermoso, Eva Navarro, and Lucía García on the front line. My bet is for Caldentey and Hermoso to get most of the minutes, but there's no bad combination here.
If all that talent isn't enough, Spain is in fantastic form heading into the Olympics. Since lifting the World Cup trophy, the side has lost two matches out of 14: A 3-2 loss to Italy in the Nations League (Spain went on to win that tournament, securing Olympic qualification) and a surprise 2-1 loss to Czechia in European Championship qualifying on July 12 (Spain led that game 1-0 through Bonmatí, but goals just on each side of halftime gave the Czechs its biggest win of qualifying, and maybe ever). The sterling record in 2024 has come all in competitive matches, not friendlies, so Spain has the talent and the experience playing together in high-stakes matches that few, if any, teams can match at the Olympics. If there's one negative to be found, it might be the pressure, because anything less than a gold medal will be seen as a disappointment. There's no one built to weather that kind of pressure better than Spain, though, and the side could cement itself as an all-time great by becoming the first World Cup winner ever to win the gold in the following Olympics.
Who Sucks?
There's a plethora of cool in this group, and Nigeria is only in this category because someone has to be. After a stellar World Cup last summer, in which the Super Falcons made the round of 16 and went out against eventual finalist England in penalties, 2024 has been more uneven. Nigeria made it to the Olympics by virtue of two narrow 1-0 wins in African qualifying, one against Cameroon and the other against South Africa. Last week, in its only pre-Olympics tune-up friendly, Nigeria lost 1-0 to defending gold medalist Canada in Marbella, Spain. That's the only match this side has played together since those qualifying matches in April, so there's not a lot of time to get chemistry going. Now, in the toughest group of the tournament, Nigeria will have an uphill climb to replicate its World Cup success by advancing to the knockout rounds.
The side does have a handful of excellent players that could provide the necessary upsets. It starts, as it has for the last decade, with Asisat Oshoala. The former Barcelona player now stars for Bay FC in the NWSL, but she hasn't quite gotten off the blocks with the expansion side, scoring only three goals in 15 matches so far. She'll have to provide more firepower for Nigeria here. Elsewhere, Atlético Madrid's Rasheedat Ajibade was stellar in qualifying, scoring four goals in six matches, including the penalty against South Africa that ended up clinching Nigeria's spot in the Olympics.
Though there are no particularly standout defenders on the side, the team under manager Randy Waldrum is as a whole strong at the back, and the group's ability to limit goals (allowing just one in qualifying) should keep them in games long enough for one of the stars up front to get a chance to tilt matches in their favor. Finally, Paris FC goalie Chiamaka Nnadozie is a penalty-stopping machine, so if Nigeria does make it out of the group and into a shootout in the knockout round, I wouldn't bet against them. I would, however, bet against that happening at all, given the quality in the rest of the group, and so Nigeria has to be at its best in order to shine at its first Olympic tournament since 2008.
One Star To Watch
Marta keeps fooling me. In 2019, I wrote that the World Cup that year was Marta's last ride with the Brazilian national team. In 2023, I wrote ... that the World Cup that year was Marta's last ride with the Brazilian national team. Yet here she is again for these Olympics, leading the charge for the nation she's turned into a powerhouse. While Brazil isn't going to be at its best in Paris, Marta has been up to her usual tricks so far in this NWSL season, with five goals in 13 matches for Orlando. She's no longer the Player of the Year–level forward she used to be, but even at the age of 38, Marta is still Marta, and that's worth tuning in for, especially as Brazil aims to get its first gold medal in Olympic play.
Even in a tough group, one in which Brazil is more likely to finish third than first, Marta provides a transitional side with both veteran steadiness and goalscoring. This Brazil team will need it; not only did it go out in the group stage at last summer's World Cup, but it isn't in great form heading into the Olympics, losing the SheBelieves Cup to semifinals to Canada (on penalties) and only barely beating Group C opponent Japan in the third-place match (also on penalties). Two comprehensive 4-0 wins against Jamaica in June do show some signs of hope, but Marta isn't leading the same Brazil that she has for so much of her storied career. If the Olympics are to be her last outing with the national team—at this point, I'm not saying anything with certainty when it comes to her presumed retirement—then Marta will have to replicate the level of performance that she had in the June 1 win over Jamaica, scoring two goals in that beatdown.
Marta might not be the star that shines brightest for Brazil anymore, but she's still the sun around which the team orbits.
One Young Lady To Watch
It's not really a big-brain move to pick the most recent World Cup's Golden Boot winner as a player to watch, but it's right: Hinata Miyazawa was Japan's best scorer in Australia/New Zealand, and she'll be right in the mix for that title once more in Paris. The 24-year-old capitalized on her World Cup performance by signing with Manchester United, and though she had an uneventful first campaign in England, the talent and opportunity is there for her to be the leader that helps Japan into the knockouts for a second tournament in a row.
Miyazawa's goal barrage at the World Cup is even more impressive when considering that she isn't even a striker. Rather, she plays in the midfield for club and country, though she has the green light to rip as many shots as she wants from deeper; over the last year, her 3.21 shots per 90 minutes put her in the 84th percentile among attacking midfielders and wingers in the top women's leagues, per FB Ref. She can play on the wing of Japan's 5-4-1 formation, or as one of the central midfield duo, without losing any of her effectiveness. In fact, she's a hard-working defender without the ball, ranking in the 99th percentile for interceptions and the 95th for clearances. And though the scoring can get the headlines, she's strong in Japan's structured system of possession, with an accurate passing foot that's always looking to advance the play.
If Miyazawa has one weakness, it's that she is not the best dribbler around; her attacks tend to come off the ball with intelligent movement rather than one-on-one skill. That's not a problem, per se, but if defenses at the Olympics focus on taking away her charging runs from midfield or her diagonals from the wings, she might find that she has to take farther shots than she's comfortable with in order to provide firepower for Japan. If she's able to find space, though, watch out, because she has the resume and talent of a world class weapon, and a repeat of last summer's explosion of goals might take Japan even further than the quarterfinals it reached last time out. — Luis Paez-Pumar
