The US group heads to the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games as favourites to assert the ladies’s soccer gold.
That’s hardly shocking given their 4 wins within the eight Olympics because the sport was added to the roster of occasions.
World champions Spain and hosts France are sizzling on their heels, however it’s arduous to rule out Brazil, with arguably the best feminine footballer in historical past.
The ladies’s soccer match begins on July 25. Listed here are our high 5 gamers to observe:
⚽ Marta – Brazil
Marta Vieira da Silva, merely often known as Marta, is arguably the best feminine footballer in historical past with six FIFA Participant of the Yr awards to her identify.
The 38-year-old has but to win a significant world trophy, having gained silver on the 2004 and 2008 Olympics whereas additionally ending on the dropping facet within the 2007 World Cup to Germany.
It’s an oddity that Brazil, who’ve gained eight of the 9 Copa Americas since its inauguration in 1991, have didn’t switch their continental dominance onto the world stage.
Certainly, Marta holds the file for probably the most objectives (17) scored at both males’s or girls’s World Cups.
The striker, who performs for Orlando Pirates within the US, has introduced this might be her final shot on the Olympics.
⚽ Racheal Kundananji – Zambia
Kundananji will carry the burden of her nation on her shoulders to the Olympics – and the expectation related to being the world’s costliest feminine footballer.
The 24-year-old signed for Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League (NWSL) enlargement group Bay FC in February from Spanish membership Madrid CFF for a charge of $788,000.
The striker, who performed for Zambia in final 12 months’s Ladies’s World Cup, has 10 objectives in 18 internationals.
In her time with Madrid, she scored 33 objectives in 43 Liga F video games having joined from Sociedad Deportiva Eibar in 2022.
⚽ Aitana Bonmati – Spain
Bonmati was named the 2023 Ballon d’Or winner after a stellar couple of seasons noticed her sweep all earlier than her for membership and nation.
The 26-year-old, who obtained her award at a ceremony alongside males’s winner Lionel Messi, helped her facet declare the 2023 World Cup in Australia with a 1-0 win towards England.
The midfielder won the Golden Ball award because the match’s finest participant. Bonmati scored six objectives in as many video games, together with netting within the remaining, for Barcelona as they beat Lyon 2-0 final season to assert the Champions League trophy for the second successive 12 months.
⚽ Lindsey Horan – USA
Horan will captain USA, who’re by far probably the most profitable group within the brief historical past of girls’s soccer on the Olympics.
The North People have gained 4 golds, two silvers and one bronze – failing to realize a medal end solely on the 2016 Video games.
The versatile 30-year-old ahead was a part of the group that misplaced their semifinal match to Canada at Tokyo 2020 however skilled the rostrum end with a 4-3 win towards Australia within the bronze medal match.
It made up in a roundabout way for the defeat on penalties, wherein Horan scored her spot kick, to Sweden 4 years earlier on the quarterfinal stage.
Having beforehand scored 46 objectives in 58 video games for Paris Saint-Germain, Horan final 12 months returned to France with Lyon following a seven-year stint within the NWSL with Portland Thorns, the place she helped her facet to the championship in 2017 and named the league’s Most Invaluable Participant the next season.
⚽ Mary Fowler – Australia
Fowler’s inventory as a rising star shot up on the 2023 World Cup when Australia’s main performer Sam Kerr was dominated out of two of the early matches on the match.
The then 20-year-old was pressured to step up within the ahead line rather than the nationwide group captain, who leads the road for Chelsea striker in England’s Ladies’s Tremendous League.
Fowler herself had been recruited by English giants Manchester Metropolis in 2022 and was already thought to be one of many brightest younger skills on the planet.
The Queenslander registered a aim within the group stage, an help within the spherical of 16 and scored her sport kick within the penalty shootout win towards France within the quarterfinals.
Fowler had been chosen for the 2019 World Cup as a 16-year-old however damage prevented her from making an look. She did, nonetheless, play a major half within the squad that reached the bronze medal match on the 2020 Video games and scored within the 4-3 quarterfinal win towards Nice Britain.
The Paris Olympics 2024 might transform Fowler’s breakout match if she leads Australia to their first gold medal.
⚽ Hold updated:
You possibly can comply with the motion on Al Jazeera’s devoted Paris 2024 Olympics tournament page with all of the information and options, in addition to occasion build-up and reside textual content commentary on chosen soccer, basketball, tennis and boxing fixtures.