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KASHIMA, Japan (AP) — The Olympics stands out as the final main soccer match for among the greatest stars on the U.S. ladies’s nationwide crew, together with ahead Carli Lloyd.
America performs its remaining sport of the Tokyo Video games on Thursday in Kashima. The Individuals, who misplaced to Canada 1-0 within the semifinals, will face Australia for the bronze medal.
Lloyd, the oldest participant on the crew at 39, has usually mentioned that after this Olympics she’ll be prepared for the subsequent section.
First, nonetheless, she’d like one final medal — regardless of the colour.
“We have got one other sport to play, that is all I am serious about,” mentioned Lloyd, who scored three objectives within the first 16 minutes of the 2015 World Cup remaining. “If we’re not going to stroll away with a gold medal, I might prefer to stroll away with a bronze medal on the very least.”
Different Individuals might resolve to maneuver on, too. Megan Rapinoe and captain Becky Sauerbrunn are each 36. Tobin Heath is 33. Whereas nonetheless younger, Heath will probably be 35 when the subsequent large match, the World Cup, rolls round in 2023.
9 of the gamers on the roster are of their 30s, together with the entire forwards aside from Lynn Williams. The unique 18 gamers named to the Tokyo squad — rosters had been later expanded to incorporate 4 alternates — had the oldest common age of any earlier U.S. Olympic crew.
“I used to be questioning how fast that query would come up,” Rapinoe mentioned with fun when requested about her future. “You guys try to place me out to pasture.”
She mentioned she hadn’t actually put an excessive amount of thought into it — at the very least nothing she’d be keen to share.
“After all, I will clearly give it some thought after the match,” she mentioned. “We do not actually get the luxurious of going one yr at a time. We type of need to assume in these four-year blocks. So I have not even considered that, simply making an attempt to arrange for this, put together for the subsequent sport.”
And it is anybody’s guess which route U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski will go together with the crew sooner or later, but it surely’s clear that the 2019 World Cup winners didn’t meet expectations in Tokyo.
They regarded out of types, in reality.
The U.S. crew opened with a 3-0 loss to nemesis Sweden — which additionally knocked america out of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Video games within the quarterfinals. That snapped a 44-game unbeaten streak that dated again to January 2019.
The Individuals rebounded with a 6-1 victory over New Zealand, boosted by a pair of own-goals, earlier than a 0-0 draw with Australia to make it out of the group stage. After america superior 4-2 in a penalty shootout after a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands within the quarterfinals, Canada proved unbeatable within the semifinals.
“We type of had a sense they had been ripe for the selecting,” Canada captain Christine Sinclair mentioned.
Lloyd agreed that the U.S. crew hadn’t proven their traditional dominance. The Individuals had been trying to rating a fifth gold medal, in addition to turn out to be the primary crew to win an Olympic title following a World Cup victory.
“I do not assume with the caliber of gamers we displayed something of what we’re able to,” Lloyd mentioned. “You noticed glimpses, however on the finish of the day, it is a small margin to get by.”
The U.S. was damage towards Canada when beginning goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher was injured and needed to go away the sport within the thirtieth minute. Jessie Fleming scored the lone aim from a penalty kick within the 74th minute towards Naeher’s backup, Adrianna Franch.
Canada will play for the gold medal towards Sweden on Friday on the Olympic Stadium.
Now a veteran of 4 Olympics, Lloyd mentioned it was too early to actually know what went unsuitable. That will come later with perspective.
“It occurs. You’ll be able to’t win all of them. This was my eighth match they usually’ve all be totally different. They’ve all had a special storyline. They’ve all began and completed in a special trend,” Lloyd mentioned. “Some have been fairly, some have been ugly, some we have simply scraped by. This one we did not get by.”
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Extra AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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