US Men's Under-23 Soccer Team Shines at Olympics | USWNT
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00:00All right, Kyle Vaughn writes about soccer for the Sporting News, and he's covering the Olympics.
00:06Marenzi's a fan. It's good to have you on Coast to Coast, Kyle.
00:11I watched the U.S. under-23 team with that 3-0 win over Guinea, New Guinea, I'm assessing.
00:19I like their uniforms, to be honest with you. I thought they were pretty fresh.
00:23They didn't look good in the game, but their unis, they had a nice drip going.
00:29Yeah, the African teams always come to play when it comes to the kits. It's always big for them.
00:35But yeah, the U.S. men looked fantastic, and really, since losing big to France in the opening game,
00:42in a game when they looked okay through the first 60 minutes and kind of fell apart, they have been on fire.
00:47And this is only the second time ever that the U.S. men have qualified for the knockout stage of the Olympics
00:55because they have just not had a great history at the Olympics. The men haven't.
01:00And this is a real big, big moment for them.
01:04They've never medaled since the first ever Olympic men's tournament when there were only three teams.
01:10And so this is a big opportunity.
01:14So it's an under-23 outfit, and where do most of them come from?
01:20Like, you know, I don't know a lot about these young kids and where they get them and where they've been playing.
01:27And, you know, I'm used to watching, we just watched the Euros and the Copa and the Premier League and the Champions League.
01:35And these are the greatest players in the world, but these are kids.
01:39Yeah, so they're coming from the same places, just maybe lesser known clubs.
01:45So a lot of these players still play either in MLS or in Europe.
01:50They just aren't as well-known players because they're younger.
01:55And so that's what makes it a little tougher for the United States in a setting like this.
01:59But because of the Copa America, because of the Euros, which are much more prestigious competitions,
02:06where the senior national players play on the men's side, the Olympics sort of has to know its place.
02:11And so that's why it's a youth tournament, is because these senior players have already just played in a major international tournament in their very small offseason.
02:20Playing in the Olympics as well is just not realistic.
02:23So that's why they bring in a lot of these kids.
02:25But they come from MLS and they come from European clubs still.
02:28So the team that lost in the Copa and didn't make it to the knockout stage,
02:39I know they're allegedly better.
02:42That would be our Olympic team in terms of 28, right?
02:49These are the guys that are going to be playing in Los Angeles.
02:52But my point is, the team that lost in the Copa, these guys, they look like they play better than that outfit.
03:00Yeah, potentially, you could argue that.
03:03The team that's playing right now in the Olympics is playing against other U23 competitions.
03:09So you have to remember that as well, where in a youth tournament, because the players aren't quite developed yet, talent doesn't really carry you as far.
03:19So there's lots of upsets.
03:21You know, you saw Spain today lost to Egypt.
03:24Spain's one of the favorites to win the tournament.
03:26So there's a lot of upsets in Olympic men's soccer just because the gap in talent from the best teams to the smallest teams is a lot smaller.
03:35So we saw Egypt win that game 2-1.
03:38We saw what, Uzbekistan tied somebody.
03:44What is that team that they played?
03:47Do you know that game today?
03:48Dominican Republic.
03:49That was the Dominican Republic they played.
03:51And then Argentina beat Ukraine 2-0.
03:54Morocco 3-0 over Iraq.
03:56And France beat New Zealand 3-0.
03:59And so we had lost to that French team.
04:01Are they like the favorites in this thing?
04:04Yeah, you have to consider them the favorites right now.
04:06They just smoked the rest of the group all the way through.
04:09They're the hosts.
04:10Before the tournament, there were three big favorites from a betting perspective.
04:15You basically had a top tier of France, Spain, and Argentina.
04:21There's a huge gap in the futures before the tournament.
04:25And then you have the rest of the field.
04:27The U.S., thanks to the insane controversy that happened way early in the tournament between Morocco and Argentina, are actually drawing Morocco in the first knockout game instead of Argentina.
04:41Because those two teams finished exactly level in their standings.
04:44So you take the head-to-head.
04:46And Morocco won the head-to-head very controversially.
04:49So Morocco finished first in their group.
04:51The U.S. finished second.
04:52Those two teams will play in the quarterfinals.
04:55And so Morocco, while not Argentina obviously, still a very formidable opponent.
05:02Because as I mentioned, there was that gap between the top three teams and the rest of the field.
05:06Well, Morocco was at the top of that rest of the field.
05:09So you've got a very difficult opponent here for the U.S. in the quarterfinals coming up.
05:15If they were able to win that game in advance, it would only be the second time ever the U.S. has made the semifinals of an Olympic tournament in the men's side.
05:27And they've never medaled.
05:29So this would be a big opportunity for them.
05:32So Morocco got lucky and got that controversial win.
05:36Where did it leave Argentina?
05:37They won today.
05:38Are they still in the knockout with their points?
05:42Yep, they made it through as the second place finisher in their group.
05:45So Argentina will play in the quarterfinals.
05:49And they will take on France.
05:52That's a big game.
05:54You've got two of the top three favorites that will match up in the quarterfinals.
05:59One of them will be going home a lot earlier than expected.
06:03So tomorrow the women play in the Olympics.
06:06And we were talking before you came on about Canada.
06:09That they're proving all the penalties that they got for the drones.
06:15All the Olympic officials are proving them wrong.
06:18They're playing great.
06:20And I thought, I don't know when the U.S. women play again.
06:23You probably do.
06:24They look fantastic.
06:26That front line with Swanson Smith and Rodman.
06:29I couldn't believe how amazing they looked against Germany.
06:33Are both of those two teams headed on a collision course?
06:36They could be.
06:39That would certainly be appointment viewing.
06:42The women's team is a little harder to figure out.
06:45Or the women's side of the competition is a little tougher to figure out where teams will end up in the knockout bracket.
06:51Because you have third place qualifiers that are sort of muddling up things.
06:55But the U.S. women are through.
06:59Already.
07:00We don't know where.
07:01But they are already through.
07:03They play tomorrow, I believe, at 1 o'clock.
07:06It might be 3.
07:08So I'll have to double check that just to make sure I've got the right information.
07:11But I know that the U.S. women will play tomorrow afternoon.
07:15It is at 1 o'clock.
07:17So they'll play Australia at 1.
07:19They're already through.
07:20The question is just where are they going to finish in the group.
07:23But Canada, I mean, what a story.
07:26They are through.
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08:24And I got 45 seconds, respectfully.
08:27Yeah, yeah.
08:28Canada should be favored in that game, but Colombia are decent.
08:33They've had a good history as far as South American women's teams are concerned.
08:38South American women football is pretty much dominated by Brazil, but you've got Argentina
08:43and Colombia as sort of like a close second tier.
08:45So it's a decent matchup for them.
08:47It's not a given by any means, but Canada should be favored in that game.