The countdown is officially on for the Olympic Games and let me tell you: I wasn’t entirely convinced we would make it to Tokyo during a pandemic, but here we are on the threshold.
women’s team roster selection for Tokyo was: Would Heath make it back? And not just back, but fit enough to contribute given the six months she was away from the game due to ankle and knee injuries.
“Every day I really, truly had to be checking off all the boxes, doing every possible thing for preparation.
That attention to detail became abundantly clear against Mexico.
20, 2020, Heath scored a goal, smacked a shot off the crossbar that Christen Press put away off the rebound, drew what I think should have been a penalty, had another assist to Press that was incorrectly called offside, and created chance after chance in her 45 minutes in the first half.
will be facing at the Olympics, but the movement, sharpness and confidence you saw in Heath over two games left you wondering how one could be so sharp having not played in six months.
I thought the International Olympic Committee would not do that, even given a pandemic, the short schedule of the Olympics — six games in 17 days to win it all — and the heat and humidity of Tokyo.
has faced Sweden 41 times, but they’ve been drawn in the group stage at six major World Championships, five of those coming at the World Cup.
Tom Sermanni, head coach of New Zealand, was a former head coach of the USWNT, for a short stint in 2013-2014.
Of course, it was going to be Australia, whose head coach is now Tony Gustavsson, former longtime assistant coach with the U.S.
team better than most, by the way, and we saw how that worked out at the last Olympics with Sundhage being at the helm for Sweden, fresh off her time with the U.S.
plays Sweden on July 21, New Zealand on July 24 and Australia on July 27, and I do like that the U.S.
If the USWNT can get three points from that first game, I think for the second game against New Zealand, we’d see a similar rotation pattern as we’ve seen throughout Andonovski’s tenure as coach.
Australia, I think you’d see something similar to the first game in terms of starting lineups, if everyone is healthy.
Of the initial 18 players named to the Olympic roster on June 23, they average 111 international caps per player and have a combined total of 77 Olympic appearances.
Every team at the Olympics, unlike World Cups, has the exact same amount of rest between games, but not the same amount of fatigue if you are able to rotate your rosters.
No family members in the camp, limited local fans and strict protocols keeping teams inside their bubbles will define this Olympics, but it will also be the best chance the U.S.
And after a week — let’s be honest, a whole year — of surprises, this one would be no surprise at all.