What a way to go out.
Advertisement
Neid, a two-time FIFA Women’s Coach of the Year, is stepping down following the Games.
RATINGS: Bolt’s gold-medal run on Thursday lifted NBC’s ratings in the dying embers of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
“We would just simply love, I know the players would love to get the gold medal”, Neid said. Although Christine Sinclair fittingly scored the eventual bronze-clincher against Brazil, Canada’s feat is perhaps most impressive for how different the two medal-winning Canadian teams were.
Germany became the third nation to win women’s football gold since its introduction at Atlanta 1996.
Canada and Brazil face off earlier Friday for the bronze medal.
Germany and Sweden were playing in the gold-medal match for the first time. Win this game and for the rest of your life you can say you are an Olympic Medalist.
Saturday’s Olympic final at the Maracana will bring down the curtain on a glittering career in which he helped plant a number of the seeds that brought Germany’s stunning World Cup 2014 glory.
The team has been led by Melanie Behringer, whose five goals are the most in the tournament. In the 48th minute, Dzsenifer Marozsan scored a lovely goal in the top corner of Sweden’s net. Her second goal came in the 61 minute off a free kick that hit off Sweden’s Linda Sembrant for a 2-0 lead.
Only five minutes later, the Swedes made it interesting as a sliding Stina Blackstenius put in a right-wing cross from eight yards to cut the deficit to 2-1. She guided the U.S. to the 2008 and 2012 championships and gold medals. Rodrigo Caio, 23, plays for Brazilian club Sao Paulo but soon will be on his way to Europe.
Four years after finishing seventh and failing to medal in the women’s modern pentathlon, Australia’s Chloe Esposito took gold in the event Friday.
But it’s really Neid’s moment, her final bit of glory in the spotlight after a dominant tournament that saw Germany out-score their opponents in the Brazil, 14-5, and secure the team’s best-ever Olympic finish.
“There was a period where I thought, ‘Uh-oh, we need something to find our way into this tournament.’ Yet from the quarter-final against China it was suddenly clear that the team had arrived and wanted to win – they wanted to do this no matter what”. While many figured that the World Cup champion US team would be cruising to its fourth straight Olympic gold, Sweden beat them on penalty kicks.
Advertisement
Pia Sundhage’s team have been competing in the tournament in place of England who, to all intents and purposes, had qualified by finishing third at the Women’s World Cup in Canada past year. “For 34 years I have been involved in women’s football as a player and coach and now I want to do something else and learn other things”.
