The USWNT looked awful at last year's World Cup, and yet there are no signs of that team at the Olympics. What's changed?
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Two games into Emma Hayes' first tournament at the helm, the Americans already look like they might be back to beingdominant team in world soccer. At the very least, per ESPN BET, they're the favorites to take gold -- ahead of the current world champions, But even that wayward finishing could've been enough to make a deeper run. Under coach Vlatko Andonovski, the team conceded a single, solitary goal across four matches at the World Cup, or 290 minutes of game time. And it wasn't the result of some kind of luck or superstar shot-stopping. The one goal was only slightly ahead of the 1.43 xG conceded. That's 0.36 xG per game -- way better than what the best defenses in the club game concede.
Although the helter-skelter style led to barely any chances conceded and a ton of chances created, there were still legitimate questions over how sustainable such an approach would be.
Let's go back to those key numbers from earlier. In their first two competitive matches under Hayes, the U.S. have crossed the ball with just 12.8% of their final-third passes -- the second lowest number in the Olympics after Spain. They've moved the ball up field at a rate of 1.26 meters per second -- closer to average but a massive drop-off from the 1.71 m/s rate we saw last summer. And they've played 32.7% of their passes forward -- again, a rate higher only than Spain.
Now, it's not all perfect. Some of the goals against Germany were quite fortunate, and the Germans themselves squandered a couple big chances. Plus, the U.S. already conceded more xG at the Olympics than they conceded in all four games at the 2023 World Cup.
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