Olympics women's football roundup - matchday 3: USA stutter again, Team GB draw & more
The group stage of the women’s Olympic football tournament is already over after all 12 team played their third and final match to decide the final standings.
Eight of the 12 have progressed to the quarter-finals, with Sweden again impressing, Great Britain, Netherlands and Brazil all finishing with seven points and the United States stuttering again.
Here’s a full roundup of the final results and a rundown of who has qualified for the knockouts…
Group E
Chile 0-1 Japan
Japan ensured they won’t be exiting their home Olympics early and secured their first win of the tournament against Chile to finish in third place in Group E and comfortably claim one of the final spots in the knockout bracket.
Mina Tanaka scored the only goal of the game, but Japan had to wait until the 77th minutes for it. Without it, a draw would still have been sufficient to get through because of other results elsewhere, although victory will breed a little more confidence.
Chile go home without a point after losing all three group games.
Canada 1-1 Great Britain
Great Britain won Group E and remained unbeaten thanks to a late equaliser from Caroline Weir against Canada, who follow them through in second place – also without losing a game.
Canada actually took the lead early in the second half thanks to West Ham forward Adriana Leon and would have topped the standing themselves had it stayed that way.
But GB fought back and it was Weir’s deflected effort from range in the final 10 minutes that gave Hege Riise’s team the result they were looking for.
Group F
Netherlands 8-2 China
Another goal rout from Netherlands saw them take their tally across three group games to an astonishing 21, while China have conversely conceded 17 times in their three outings.
The scoreline didn’t become particularly one-sided until the second half, with the Dutch only leading 3-1 at the interval. But Lieke Martens and Vivianne Miedema each scored braces in the second half, while Victoria Pelova also got in on the action.
This is the first time that China have failed to make it through to the knockout rounds of an Olympics since 2004, and only the second time they have failed to win at least one game.
Brazil 1-0 Zambia
Brazil were free-scoring in their first two games but a 1-0 win over Zambia still ensured they enter the knockout rounds with the joint second best record of any team in the competition.
Andressa Alves scored the solitary goal early in the contest and only an impossible rout would have been enough for Brazil to better Netherlands’ far superior goal difference. The pair finished level on seven points but the latter go through in first place.
Zambia drew a blank for the first time at this tournament, with Barbra Banda having previously scored back-to-back hat-tricks against Netherlands and China.
Group G
New Zealand 0-2 Sweden
Sweden are the only team to finish the group stage with maximum points after earlier wins against the United States and Australia preceded this 2-0 victory over New Zealand.
This was always going to be the most favourable fixture for the Swedes and a first half goal each from new Everton signing Anna Anvegard and Madelen Janogy made it a comfortable contest.
New Zealand were always up against it in this group but a lack of preparation due to the coronavirus pandemic made it even tougher still.
United States 0-0 Australia
Despite putting New Zealand to the sword on matchday two, the United States’ struggles at this competition continued as they were held to a goal-less draw by a resilient Australia.
The draw saw both the Americans and Australians finish level on four points, with goal difference alone handing the former second place and a guaranteed spot in the knockout stages.
That meant third place for Australia, but their four-point tally was still plenty enough to get through.
Qualifiers for the quarter-finals
Great Britain, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Brazil, Sweden, USA, Australia.
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