The U.S. women’s national team’s Olympics trophy cabinet is getting heavy, what with the fifth gold medal just added to a rack that includes a silver and bronze to boot. The gold medal game itself wasn’t always pretty and it certainly didn’t seem comfortable for the players, but the U.S. managed to turn things around for the program in Emma Hayes’s 10th game in charge.
Wild stuff.
Some may wish to claim that the United States is once again the best team in the world, and you can understand the impulse. No team outplayed them until the first half of the final against Brazil. Even then, they acquitted themselves better than Spain had against Brazil only a few days before.
We know they’re the best, then, right?
Well…
It’s natural to feel like you know such a thing, because the U.S. won. But they won gold by winning six games in 17 days. That sample size is so small that lots of crazy things can happen within it. And for all the things we can know for certain about the United States – something about Naomi Girma drinking a triple espresso – there’s plenty that remains a mystery about the side.
So then: what do we know and not know about the USWNT post-gold medal?
Blair Newman
We know they were the best team at the Olympics.
There’s no denying that the U.S. performed the best across those 17 days in France.
Both they and Spain generated 1.9 non-penalty xG per 90 minutes, but the Americans held their opponents to a measly 0.7 non-penalty xG per 90. Only Japan did a better job of limiting their opponents’ shooting chances during the tournament. Add up both attack and defense, and it’s no accident the United States was the only team to win every single game they played.
