Megan Rapinoe Explains What Went Improper For USWNT At Olympics

America girls’s nationwide soccer staff didn’t carry out as marketed in Tokyo.

The People struggled out of the gate, dropping their Olympic opener to Sweden in quite beautiful style. The U.S. nonetheless managed to achieve the semifinal stage, however its pursuit of a gold medal got here to an finish Monday with a 1-0 loss to Canada. It marked the People’ first loss to their North American neighbor in 20 years.

So, what went fallacious for the U.S. on the Video games? Longtime staff chief Megan Rapinoe put it in rather blunt terms after the loss to Canada.

“If I may simply say one thing, I simply suppose the gamers have lots to take a look at ourselves about,” Rapinoe informed reporters, per ESPN. ” It’s not like, ‘Oh, we didn’t play higher,’ and getting on one another, however we have to carry out higher, interval. We don’t have juice as a result of the ball’s banging off our shins and we’re not discovering open passes and doing the straightforward issues.”

“We will deep-dive into analyzing, and I do know we are going to, however on the finish of the day, there’s all of the preparation you are able to do and all of the techniques, after which there’s every little thing else, and that’s what we have been lacking. You may’t put a reputation on the ‘every little thing else,’ but it surely’s simply getting it achieved from gamers, from all of us.”

Rapinoe and Co. won’t go away Tokyo empty-handed. They’ll battle Australia on Thursday within the bronze-medal match.