Should you wished a metric as to the probabilities for america ladies’s area hockey crew within the Paris Olympics, right here it’s: betting odds put the Individuals, the host French, and South Africa at backside with 10000-to-1 odds to win the gold medal.
The Olympics are all the time a problem (heck, the United Eagles had a problem simply getting right here), however in the case of the upcoming schedule, the crew is dealing with a Assassin’s Row of groups on this pool. The problem is to face Argentina (two-time FIH World Cup winners), Spain (1992 Olympic champions), Australia (Olympic gold medalists in 1988, 1996, and 2002), and Crew GB (2016 Olympic champions), all within the house of about 120 hours, with South Africa left to shut out the prelims.
It’s the basic “Group of Loss of life” state of affairs. None of those sides are a simple win, and it’s potential that the States might miss the knockouts even when they can get as many as 5 factors (a win and two attracts) in pool play.
Positive, america can have its standard edge in bodily conditioning and on protection. The protection will construct up round goalkeeper Kelsey Bing, captain Amanda Golini, defender Ashley Hoffman, midfielder Maddie Zimmer, and nook flyer Meredith Sholder.
The query is, will the U.S. be capable of get the ball to its ahead line in promising positions? Ashley Sessa, Abby Tamer, and Elizabeth Yeager are going to should be ruthless in entrance of the objective cage. At their finest, they’ll rating on anyone.
I believe Zimmer, Golini, and Hoffman are going to be the “luck barometers” of this crew. If they can win greater than their share of 50-50 battles within the center third of the sphere, they might trigger issues for the opposition.
It’s a tricky schedule with powerful groups, however there’s a recognition that nothing price doing is straightforward. In different phrases, the United Eagles should take these experiences, study from them, and parlay them into future successes main into the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
