Improvement required for USWNT in the Tokyo Olympic Games

Goal's Seth Vertelney brings you the American women’s soccer news you need to know today.

The U.S. women’s national team has advanced past the group stage at the Olympics, but they’ll need to show improvement if they are to take home gold in Japan.

After entering the tournament as strong favourites, the U.S. could only manage one win, one draw and one defeat in their three group stage matches. A 3-0 defeat to Sweden to open the tournament was an especially shocking result.

Now the U.S. must regroup ahead of the knockout stage, where a difficult quarterfinal match with the Netherlands awaits on Friday. The game will be a rematch of the 2019 World Cup final, where the U.S. defeated the Dutch 2-0 in France to win their second straight World Cup title.

The U.S. will be aiming to avoid their second straight Olympic quarterfinal exit, after losing to Sweden in the last eight in Rio five years ago. That defeat came after the U.S. had won gold at each of the previous three Olympics.