Mallory Pugh, an 18-year-old forward, accelerates past Costa Rica’s Lixy Rodrigues in Friday’s friendly in Kansas City, Kan. (Gary Rohman/USA TODAY Sports)
Officially, the Games of the XXXI Olympiad will not begin until the evening of Aug. 5 when Maracana Stadium’s cauldron is lit.
For the U.S. women’s national soccer team, the quest for a fourth consecutive gold medal will begin a full 48 hours earlier, not amid the festival of Rio de Janeiro but 215 miles north in Belo Horizonte.
With large-scale stadiums needed daily in order to accommodate both the men’s and women’s competitions, outsourcing is necessary. So for many of the teams involved, the Summer Games can feel like just that: summer games, not the Olympics.
Over two weeks, however, the Americans will make it their goal to reach Rio, the possible site of their semifinal and the backdrop for the gold medal matches at fabled Maracana.
They played their final tuneup Friday in Kansas City, Kan., extending an unbeaten streak to 15 matches with a 4-0 victory over Costa Rica. They’re now in Washington for downtime and closed workouts before boarding a flight to Brazil.
One year after winning the World Cup, the Americans are No. 1 in the FIFA rankings and favored to win gold for the fifth time in the six Olympics that have featured women’s soccer. They’ll seek to become the first women’s team to conquer the Olympics and World Cup in consecutive years.
Despite the U.S. team’s status, another global honor is far from certain. Olympic soccer, for both men and women, is compact. For the women, it means up to six matches in 17 days (compared to a maximum seven in four weeks for the World Cup) and 18 rostered players, five fewer than at the World Cup. The men’s squads are limited to 18, as well.
Fatigue will stem from not only the heavy schedule but, like last year’s tournament in Canada, travel in a large country. The Americans will play their first two matches in Belo Horizonte, then journey 1600 miles into Amazonia for the group finale in Manaus.
A first-place finish would set them in a bracket that includes a quarterfinal in Brasilia and a semi in Rio.
With a second unit good enough to contend for a medal, Coach Jill Ellis is equipped with bountiful depth. Her defense is set with Hope Solo in goal; Julie Johnston and Becky Sauerbrunn in central defense; Kelley O’Hara at right back; and Meghan Klingenberg at left back. Ali Krieger is the first option off the bench to play in a wide position.
Carli Lloyd, Lindsey Horan and Morgan Brian are the first-choice midfielders, but Lloyd and Brian are returning from injuries. On Friday, Lloyd played a full match for the first time since spraining her right knee in April.
“We’re trying to get minutes in for her, so the fact she went 90 in this heat, I was pleased,” Ellis said of the reigning FIFA player of the year after Friday’s match. “For her first 90 minutes back, very good.”
Lloyd scored the third goal on a header in first-half stoppage time.
Ellis is also working Brian back into the lineup after a series of hamstring setbacks. She entered in the 78th minute against Costa Rica. Allie Long, a national team newcomer, has filled in admirably, and if Brian is not at full capacity, Ellis will not hesitate to stay with Long.
Alex Morgan will start at center forward, but questions remain about the wings in the opener against New Zealand. Tobin Heath, the most technically skilled player on the squad, missed the July 9 friendly against South Africa with a minor injury and entered late against Costa Rica.
In the past two matches, Ellis started players who were not on the World Cup squad last year: the Washington Spirit’s Crystal Dunn, the 2015 National Women’s Soccer League MVP, and UCLA-bound Mallory Pugh. This year, Dunn is second on the U.S. team in scoring (10 goals) and Pugh, 18, leads in assists (seven).
“Mal is just growing leaps and bounds,” Ellis said. “She is a player who has assimilated herself pretty quickly into this roster and now we’re looking for her to be an impact player.”
There was a notable absence from Friday’s tuneup, in Megan Rapinoe. Chosen for the small Olympic squad despite no game action since recovering from an ACL injury, the accomplished attacker figured to make her return in the send-off match. However, she was not in uniform.
Although the final friendlies were against weak foes – South Africa is ranked No. 52, Costa Rica is No. 29 – Ellis likes the team’s rhythm heading into the Olympics.
“Overall,” she said, “I was really pleased with the simplicity with which we played but [also] our effectiveness with which we played.”
