[ColoradoTree]

One good thing about the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament is that there are no flukes here. The eight teams here are the eight-highest-ranked teams in the tournament:

#6 Great Britain* vs. #9 Australia
#5 Sweden vs. #11 Japan
#1 United States vs. #3 Netherlands
#7 Brazil vs. #8 Canada

*ranking is for England, since the four home nations compete separately except for the Olympics, but all but 3 of the players on the Team GB roster play for England anyway--two are from Scotland and one from Wales. #2 Germany and #4 France didn't qualify because UEFA doesn't have a separate Olympic qualifying tournament for the women--they use performance at the most recent Women's World Cup instead, which is an absolutely trash way of going about it. France was undefeated in that tournament when we played them, but because of the vagaries of ping pong balls assigning teams to groups, we played them in the quarterfinals instead of the semis (when we beat England) or the final (when we beat the Netherlands). Meanwhile, England is here because they got to play #13 Norway instead of #1 USA in the quarters. When 5 of the top 10 teams in the world are from Europe, 12 of the top 20, and 19 of the top 30, that's just an unacceptable situation. Let teams earn their places on the field against each other, not just because one team ran into the eventual winners one round before another did. At least the men's European Olympic qualifiers were at a European-only age group championship. The women deserve the same consideration.

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Although the coach may have been happy with the result, I didn''t think the women's soccer team looked good against Australia.  They seemed lethargic and uninspired.  In my uneducated opinion it is risky to focus primarily on just not letting the other team score.  If the opponent scores a goal late in the second half, you are probably going to end up losing.  I don't like how pool play is set up where you win one match and that's good enough to stay in contention for gold.

I suppose things will become more clear in the knockout rounds when everything is on the line.

They did look uncomfortable with the tactics, that's for sure. A USWNT that isn't trying like hell to score every time they have the ball just isn't the USWNT we're used to seeing. Almost seemed like they were chafing under the tactical approach? We're an aggressive team. That's our calling card. Without that, who are we? 

Something in the middle is required, of course. We looked dreadful on defense against Sweden, and we didn't need to be great on defense against New Zealand, so as long as things look more complete moving forward, I'll reserve judgment on Vlatko basically treating the Australia match as a 90-minute training exercise in staying home and defending well. There's no better test than the Netherlands, and no one has looked better on offense than they have, so we'll see how complete of a team we are in a few days' time. 

It was an extremely conservative approach, and we'll see soon enough whether it was misguided, but it means we leave the group stage without any major injuries and we got some players some rest, too. (And even those who played obviously didn't have to exert the same amount of energy as they would had the tactics been different.) I mean, this team is very old, and this schedule is very compressed. So, while taking our foot off the gas seems anathema, maybe it's the smartest choice given how group play unfolded. I'd like to be going into the Netherlands match with more confidence, but at least we're going in healthy and reasonably rested.

[ColoradoTree]

One good thing about the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament is that there are no flukes here. The eight teams here are the eight-highest-ranked teams in the tournament:

#6 Great Britain* vs. #9 Australia
#5 Sweden vs. #11 Japan
#1 United States vs. #3 Netherlands
#7 Brazil vs. #8 Canada

*ranking is for England, since the four home nations compete separately except for the Olympics, but all but 3 of the players on the Team GB roster play for England anyway--two are from Scotland and one from Wales. #2 Germany and #4 France didn't qualify because UEFA doesn't have a separate Olympic qualifying tournament for the women--they use performance at the most recent Women's World Cup instead, which is an absolutely trash way of going about it. France was undefeated in that tournament when we played them, but because of the vagaries of ping pong balls assigning teams to groups, we played them in the quarterfinals instead of the semis (when we beat England) or the final (when we beat the Netherlands). Meanwhile, England is here because they got to play #13 Norway instead of #1 USA in the quarters. When 5 of the top 10 teams in the world are from Europe, 12 of the top 20, and 19 of the top 30, that's just an unacceptable situation. Let teams earn their places on the field against each other, not just because one team ran into the eventual winners one round before another did. At least the men's European Olympic qualifiers were at a European-only age group championship. The women deserve the same consideration.

---

Although the coach may have been happy with the result, I didn''t think the women's soccer team looked good against Australia.  They seemed lethargic and uninspired.  In my uneducated opinion it is risky to focus primarily on just not letting the other team score.  If the opponent scores a goal late in the second half, you are probably going to end up losing.  I don't like how pool play is set up where you win one match and that's good enough to stay in contention for gold.

I suppose things will become more clear in the knockout rounds when everything is on the line.

They did look uncomfortable with the tactics, that's for sure. A USWNT that isn't trying like hell to score every time they have the ball just isn't the USWNT we're used to seeing. Almost seemed like they were chafing under the tactical approach? We're an aggressive team. That's our calling card. Without that, who are we? 

Something in the middle is required, of course. We looked dreadful on defense against Sweden, and we didn't need to be great on defense against New Zealand, so as long as things look more complete moving forward, I'll reserve judgment on Vlatko basically treating the Australia match as a 90-minute training exercise in staying home and defending well. There's no better test than the Netherlands, and no one has looked better on offense than they have, so we'll see how complete of a team we are in a few days' time. 

It was an extremely conservative approach, and we'll see soon enough whether it was misguided, but it means we leave the group stage without any major injuries and we got some players some rest, too. (And even those who played obviously didn't have to exert the same amount of energy as they would had the tactics been different.) I mean, this team is very old, and this schedule is very compressed. So, while taking our foot off the gas seems anathema, maybe it's the smartest choice given how group play unfolded. I'd like to be going into the Netherlands match with more confidence, but at least we're going in healthy and reasonably rested.