High Competition for Group of Death, Wildcards in Women’s Olympics

By Kara McDermott

An exciting day of soccer marked the second round of matches in group play for the women’s side of the Olympics. Brazil, Great Britain and the United States guaranteed their spots, but Group F will be decided by the final whistles on Tuesday.

GROUP E
Keeping the fans on the edge of their seats, New Zealand pulled off probably the best loss in the tournament so far. The underdog stood down powerhouse Brazil and played with the South Americans until dropping the game on a late 86th minute goal by Cristiane.

It was a heroic fight for the Kiwis, but they will have to sit tight until all the matches are completed to see if they earned a third-place wildcard draw into the quarterfinals. Great Britain secured a seed by beating Cameroon 3-0.

The group will finish up on Tuesday with a consolation match between New Zealand and Cameroon and a showdown for top seeding between Brazil and Great Britain.

Best Case Scenario
BRAZIL: Beat Great Britain, advance first out of group play with a massive goal differential.

GREAT BRITAIN : Beat Brazil, advance first with the momentum of beating a top team.

NEW ZEALAND: Beat Cameroon by a lot of goals and either Canada (Group F) or North Korea (Group G) lose to improve chances at a wildcard passport.

CAMEROON: Beat New Zealand. Hope for some help to contend for a wildcard spot.

GROUP F
As predicted, Sweden and Japan battled to a tight shut-out draw. This group of death will take the competition all the way to the last round of play.

Canada beat South Africa 3-0 off of an early 7th minute goal by Melissa Tancredi and a brace by captain and stone-faced star Christine Sinclair in the 58th and 86th minute.

Japan will next play South Africa. Assuming that they win, the Canada versus Sweden match will be a tight contest for advancement. Sweden needs only to not lose. A loss will put Canada ahead to advance.

Canada’s only advancement in Olympic play was in 2008 on a wildcard draw, and that seems a likely prospect again. However, that could very well set them up to play Brazil in the quarterfinals.

Sweden could advance first out of group though if they win and maintain the goal differential advantage on Japan. Should Sweden get a narrow 1-0 win, Japan would still need a goal differential of at least four scores to tie Sweden.

Best Case Scenario
SWEDEN: Beat Canada, even by one goal they would be in good stead to take top honors out of their group.

JAPAN: Beat South Africa by five goals. A win is likely for the World Cup champions over the inexperienced Africans but the score line makes for a very tall order.

CANADA: Beat Sweden by any margin to advance second out of group play (assuming Japan beats South Africa).

SOUTH AFRICA: Beat Japan . Though with their goal differential they are unlikely to get a wild card slot even with a victory, a win is always good.

GROUP G
The US continued their march through group play with a decisive 3-0 victory against Colombia. Abby Wambach found the goal with one good eye in the 74th minute after being punched in the face by Lindy Andrade in the first half. The contact was not caught by the referee, but was caught on camera which could spell retroactive punishment.

Seattle Sounder Megan Rapinoe rolled over the momentum of her play against France to score the first goal in the 33rd minute. Carli Lloyd added to her tournament goal tally in the 77th minute.

Right after that game came the faceoff between France and North Korea. France was playing for their lives and it showed. A benign first half opened up into an onslaught of scoring for the Frenchwomen as they took five goals off of the Koreans.

Laura Georges walked out of the locker room and down to the goal to score in the first minute of the second half. Elodie Thomis and Maurie-Laure Delie peppered the beleaguered defense in the 70th and 71st minute and then Wendie Renard and Camille Catala followed in the81st and 87th to contribute to the biggest blowout of the tournament so far (for perspective, high-ranked Sweden only beat lowest-ranked South Africa 4-1).

Best Case Scenario
USA: Beat or tie North Korea to guarantee top of the group. This will seed them against one of the third-place wildcards.

FRANCE: Beat Colombia by a strong margin and root for the North Koreans to beat the US. If that upset occurs, France currently has a two goal differential to make up in order to overtake the Americans.

NORTH KOREA: Beat the US by a huge margin. Assuming France wins, it would come down to goal differential and currently the US is plus-5 while Korea DPR is minus-3. A win of any margin will put them in good running for a wild card spot.

COLOMBIA: Beat France, but they would need quite a bit of help from others to contend for a wild card spot.

QUARTERFINAL SEEDING PREDICTIONS
E1: Brazil
vs.
F3/G3 (wildcard): Canada

G1: United States
vs.
E3/F3 (wildcard): New Zealand

F1: Sweden
vs.
G2: France

E2: Great Britain
vs.
F2: Japan