Could this be the most unpredictable Olympics yet?
The Olympics is a unique event when it comes to football, with a condensed, competitive format to test squads to their limits. Could it throw up some surprises and shocks along the way?
It’s just over a week until the women’s football gets under way at the Paris 2024 Olympics, a day in advance of the official opening ceremony, but a needs must for a competition which demands the gold medalists play six games in just 16 days.
So far, it feels like the tournament has received little fanfare in comparison to the last two summers, which saw both a World Cup and a variety of continental competitions.
Maybe that’s because the men’s Euros has only just finished, or perhaps more so because it is only a small part of the wider spectacle that comes with an Olympics.
But, if you scratch the surface hard enough, there are some key ingredients and recurring quirks which make football at an Olympics different, potentially this year more than ever.
Take advantage of WFC’s special ‘Paris 2024’ offer ahead of our dedicated coverage of the Olympics live from inside France.
Until the opening game on Thursday 25th July, get 25% off an annual subscription, meaning 12 months of access to our all our Premium Content for just £33.75!
Early in the cycle
We often think of international cycles as between two World Cups - or I do anyway?!
Contract lengths suggest a similar thought process from federations themselves too. USA’s new head coach Emma Hayes is signed through to 2027, as is Canada’s defending gold medal-winning head coach Bev Priestman.
Others not at the Olympics, such as England’s Sarina Wiegman, are also contracted to 2027, the year of the next World Cup in Brazil.
That means we are only one year into the latest international ‘cycle’, and many of the 12 nations competing across France in the next three weeks have undergone huge change from last summer and are very much still finding themselves within their new identities.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the last Olympics was pushed back a year and therefore slotted in two years after the 2019 World Cup, giving competing nations more time to nail down their new players, coaches and ways of playing before Tokyo in 2021.
But back on a normal international calendar, less than 12 months have passed since Australia and New Zealand, and the lack of time to implement the big changes some of the teams have gone through might just catch a few out!
Coaching Changes
Here’s the first big one.
There may only be 12 nations at the women’s football tournament, but six of them have undergone coaching changes in the past 12 months since the World Cup.
For a 12 team tournament, that’s a lot!
Some were purely performance related, such as the USA replacing Vlatko Andonovski with Hayes or Brazil replacing Pia Sundhage with Arthur Elias.
Others were brought about by more public off-field issues, such as World Cup winning-coach Jorge Vilda leaving Spain to be replaced by assistant Montse Tome, or more recently New Zealand head coach Jitka Klimková stepping aside to be replaced on an interim basis by her own assistant in Michael Mayne.
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg stepped away for health reasons, giving Horst Hrubesch another interim spell in charge before Christian Wück takes over post-Olympics, while Colombia also promoted their own assistant Angelo Marsiglia to replace Nelson Abadia.
It means only six of the nations have the same head coach and a little bit of consistency in their set up, but with several of the big nations and tournament favourites still getting used to a new dawn, it should provide some place for the odd surprise result or two.
New look squads
A combination of both the above brings about a natural change in how many squads are looking this summer too.
Of course, the nature of 18-player squads compared to 23-player squads of the World Cups means every nation has had to cull at least five players from its squad, but with a new cycle and a new head coach naturally comes change on the pitch too.
Take Brazil for example, who possibly have one eye on hosting the next World Cup in 2017, who have left behind 14 players from last summer’s squad which didn’t make it past the group stage, bedding in nine new players to its 18-player squad. That’s a 50% change in less than a year.
It’s a not too dissimilar story for the USA who have also undergone huge transition with 13 players out and eight new faces in from their own disappointing tournament down under last summer.
Many have followed, such as Zambia who have also undergone a major facelift, and those who have led with consistency may just prove too hot to handle for those who are potentially looking further ahead than the Olympics.
Take Spain for example, who have made just three additions to its squad from 12 months ago, or the impressive Japan side with the same figure.
Competitive games
The other added nature of a 12 team tournament is every game is huge. There are no gimmees here, it’s a world away from the expanded 32 team World Cup we saw last summer, and even that didn’t bring about the potential whitewash scorelines many feared.
20 of those nations have gone, leaving just 12 of the best national teams in the world to fight it out.
When you add in all the variables from above, it adds an extra layer of uncertainty, and while the fact two of the third-placed sides will make it out of the groups, how stacked all three groups are means four big nations will miss out on even a quarter-final berth.
In the first round of games alone you have a rematch of Spain vs Japan, an eye-catching tie between hosts France and World Cup shining stars Colombia, as well as Germany vs Australia.
How competitive it gets beyond that as you get to the winner takes all knockout rounds doesn’t even bare thinking about at this stage. What’s for certain is to get through all six games and come out the other end with a gold medal is going to take some resilience.
6 games in 16 days
And on that, it’s not just about the six games, but the timeframe.
There has been calls for football tournaments at Olympic Games to be expanded beyond 12 teams, but the nature of the schedule means that is tricky, given the schedule is compacted enough as it is.
The fact the tournament has to get under way 24 hours before the official opening ceremony says a lot, with teams being forced to play a potential six matches across just 16 days should they reach the final.
For those unlucky enough to have to miss out on glory and play for bronze, there’s the added negative of it being six games in just 15 days, with the bronze medal match a day before Paris’s showpiece finale.
Off the back of a long, hard domestic campaign and for Spain, France and Germany the curiosity of July Euro 2025 qualifiers which continued this week, it’s a rough schedule, and even the fact it’s an Olympics doesn’t negate the travel aspect.
This tournament doesn’t come to Paris itself until the final, with games taking place in Nantes and Bordeaux, Lyon and Saint-Etienne and Nice and Marseille.
Groups are generally segregated by two locations nearest to each other, but it still means a trek around the country for those who get as far as the last eight and beyond.
Alternate rule change
Some welcomed breathing room for the 12 head coaches though has arrived in the form of a key tweak to the alternate player rules ahead of the tournament.
While teams are restricted to 18 usable players, each nation is able to nominate four alternates to be with the team in France, but previously could only be used should a player drop out of the squad through injury on a permanent basis.
Now, teams will be able to temporarily replace a player who may have suffered a small knock and may only miss one game with an alternate, and swap them back once said player is back fit, as long as they give enough notice to FIFA and the IOC.