USWNT Matildas Preview: Yanks Look to Sweep Olympics Group Stage

MARSEILLE, France – The U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team (USWNT) will close out Group B play Wednesday when they take on Australia at 11 a.m. MT. The match will be played at Stade de Marseille. USA Network, Universo, and Peacock will broadcast the made for television viewing game.

The U.S. can clinch first place in their group table with a win or draw. They are all set to advance to the knockout round. That achievement came at the expense of Germany. The Lady Yanks trounced FIFA 4th-ranked side, 4-1, in their second match of group play.

The U.S. was led by Colorado’s Holy Trinity of Sophia Smith, Mallory Swanson, and Lindsey Horan. Smith scored twice, Swanson once, all while Horan controlled the midfield with her usual intensity and consistency.

“We were devastating when we needed to be. We were well-worthy of our lead at halftime,” said Head coach Emma Hayes after the match “There’s still things that irritate me about us, and I say that genuinely, purely because I think we could have controlled it even more. I think we allowed Germany to come back into the game in parts because of our decision-making.” 

The hyped-up game was the best that the U.S. played in months. And it’s a rare day on a football pitch that anyone pushes around the Germans the way the Americans did.

Post-game, the bullish Smith said, “This is probably only game six or seven of us playing up front together. We’re clicking really well, really fast. I think this is only like 70 percent of what we can do,” 

Leading up to the match, Smith was considered questionable from an ankle injury that she sustained against a rough Zambia side. However, at the team’s final practice, Hayes reported that she was ‘fine,’ and fine she was. 

She now has seven career multi-goal games, two of which have come at world championship events. She also scored a brace against Vietnam at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. With her two goals against Germany, Smith now leads the USWNT in scoring with seven goals this year, and she now has eight goal involvements -6 goals and 2 assists in her past seven games for the USWNT.  

Swanson’s three goals to open Paris 2024 are the most ever by a USWNT player in the team’s first two matches at an Olympics. It also marks the first time a USWNT player has scored in back-to-back Olympic matches. The Highlands Ranch, Colorado native now has 37 international goals. 

Team captain Horan will now lead the U.S. against an energized Australia team that defeated Zambia, 6-5, in their second match at Stade de Nice. The Aussie rallied back from a 5-2 deficit to eke out a last-minute win.

The U.S. leads the overall series against Australia with a record of 28W-1L-5D. The last time the two rivals faced one another was in November of 2021 in a pair of friendlies. The game concluded in a draw. In the second game, the United States won 3-0, with one goal coming from Horan.

The U.S. is unbeaten in its last six matches against Australia – 3W-0L-3D,  with all but one of those meetings decided by two goals or fewer.

This group stage finale in Marseille will be their fourth meeting all-time at the Olympics. Two of the previous three Olympic meetings came in 2021 in Tokyo – the scoreless draw to close out the group stage and the 4-3 meeting in the bronze medal match, while the teams also played in the final group stage game of the 2004 Olympics, that ending in a 1-1 draw.

Hayes hopes that her team’s togetherness will carry over to the match against the Matildas. “There are things I learned about the team tonight from a character perspective that I wanted to see. From a resilience standpoint that I wanted to see, too,” Hayes added. “And then there were moments I could see there were lapses, that we have work to do with them players.” 

Photo Credit: John Babiak

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