Semi Final

USA 3 - 0 Costa Rica

N.Kai 2 goals

H.O'Reilly


The US now face Canada in the final on Saturday.

so why are we not having a team at the Olympics ...?

Because countries like Scotland don't want to part of a Great Britain team. All the other home nations I think would of done it as long it was just for the Olympics. The England team did so well and had actually qualified for it and it' a shame for them. The FA wont allow an England team for some reason that still baffles me.

because Great Britain is competing not england

But they wont allow a Great Britain team so why not England.

football politics eh .....i thought the Olympics were all about nations coming together and competing as a team .....i could understand the mens game ...but the womens game ...it needs all the coverage it can get .

yeah I think the FA pulled england out of it shame they would have selected the whole Arsenal ladies team otherwise

Couldn't have used Emma, Ciara or Yvonne though, as they're Irish

This is a thread for the USA Olympics. Please take anymore talk of England's campaign or any other to the relevant threads.

désolé

And no non-English language posts

USA have qualified for the Olympics in Beijing .

The final game ended 1-1. Both teams left it late into extra time. Carli Lloyd getting the only goal for the states before Tancredi tied it for Canada.

USA won 6-5 on penalties.

Really good CONCACF action this year, there seems to have been major improvements by most teams in the tournament. The Costa Rican's for example had a lot of there players being only in their teens, so they could be a force to be reckoned with in the next couple of years. The Mexican's are really fast and I've always got the impression that their goalie, who played college ball in the US, is very, very good. The problem for both teams, however, seems to be their fitness. All the US players can play a 90 minute game, they can only play about 60. Either of these teams deserves (based on ability) the spot that probably Argentina has booked for itself, but those aren't the rules.

The US's back line still seems a bit worrying, but the chances they seem to be getting on offense seem to be improving. After this tournament I don't think Tasha Kai's going anywhere. In the Costa Rica game they got lucky since Wambach, Rampone, and Solo all had crap games, so it was good that they are improving there diversity in scoring. The Canada game I could only read on MatchTracker, but it sounded like a great second half, overtime and PKtime, Mcleoud, Canada's goalie, sounded like she was absolutely on fire, it would have been nice to see.

Here are the only video highlights someone has found of the game, they come on about 2 or 2 1/2 minutes of this clip. These will probably be the only clips you find since the USWNT can't post them on their site due to stupid CONCACAF rules:

http://www.kvia.com/global/video/pop...eAdTag=Station

And Smithy if you ever want to see if any of the USWNT games are broadcast anywhere, including the internet, scan the bigsoccer Women's soccer boards. Those people are diehard, if it is broadcast anywhere, anywhere, those people will find it and post a link before game time. And if it's only on Matchtracker, which is more often than not, they tend to post pretty entertaining commentary to relieve the boredom. Just fyi.

Thanks wei , it's looks like I'm gonna have to do that if the guy I usually get the games from sticks to his word of not doing them anymore.

Has Heather Mitts now missed the boat do you think , or is there still a slim chance with the friendlies coming up.

Solo played less in this qualifying than any other I think. Barnie is proving to be a good challenger for that position.

Sorry I screwed up the link again, but its on the Big Soccer boards, those people are also a lot more tech savy than me.

Mitts I think still has a slim chance based, I think, on the fact that the backline still seems to have issues and she has the skills and speed Pia probably wants combined with the always desired defensive appreciated trait of experience. Look for her in the upcomming friendlies against Australia, if she's not there I think that would be the end of the experimenting period and the rest of the matches would be more about the geling of the Oly team. I've read she's a fittness buff so she should be able to get game fit for the Oly's if she's playing games by April, but after that there aren't a large amount of games to get her game ready, and I think she hasn't played in at least a year, so you would expect Pia would want that from her.

Pia made a point of saying in her post CONCACAF interviews that they had three qualified goalies to choose from, so Scurries not out of the running. But I think the point of giving Barney so much playing time during the tourney was to prepare her for the Oly's. Getting a championship game and real PK experience and then comming up with the winning save is huge for her chances of being the number 2. She played well in a big game with a lot of pressure, plus she can kick, so I think she's put herself in a position to be the number 2. But I would assume Solo's still the no. 1 because she's got so much more experience, but she's really got to work on her breaks of concentration like the one that she had in the Korea game and the rescent Costa Rica game, they hurt her future chances, especially with the upcomming league.

Go to the Olympic thread in the tournament section to see the full Olympic draw.