Utahns on USA tie in women’s Olympic soccer

Team USA women's soccer played Australia in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Photo: Jeffrey F Lin

TOKYO, Japan. — Former Utah Royals National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) athletes Kelley O’Hara, defender, Christen Press, forward, and Becky Sauerbrunn, defender started in the Australia game. The final score was 0 – 0. 

O’Hara has been with the National Team for a decade, Sauerbrunn is the captain of the team and Press, another veteran of the Olympic play, was the all-time-leading goal-scorer at Stanford.

1000 local elementary school children were invited into the stadium as spectators. They were the only ones due to COVID protocols. Saurbrunn, during her time playing for the Utah Royals made time to be interviewed by Park City Education Foundation’s Ecker Record Middle School student newspaper.

In the 29th minute, Press created an opportunity for a shot on goal, got the ball, turned, kicked hard and it was blocked by an Australian player. Right after, the US’s Kelly O’Hara took the corner kick set piece. Teammate Alex Morgan got a header into the goal but it was disallowed by the refs for offsides, barely offsides but offsides nonetheless. 

Sauerbrunn told NBC Commentators before the game, “We’re very disapointed in conceding four goals in a competition. We’ve made individual and tactical mistakes. We’ve watched a lot of film, Vlatko (Coach) is very detail-oriented.”

They’ve given up four goals in two games at these Olympics. 

The wind was swirling in the 77-degree stadium as a storm approached. The USA team took a knee in an act of protest for racial injustice after getting into playing positions on the field at the moment before the game-starting whistle.

According to the Associated Press (AP), long restricted by the International Olympic Committee, such protests within limited parameters are now permitted at the Games inside the field of play.

The IOC allows gestures of activism — if permitted by that sport’s governing body — only before or after the official start of events at the Olympics. 

Podium protests are still off-limits, prohibiting a repeat of the raised black-gloved fists of American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

Megan Rapinoe, who received a yellow card, said to the AP earlier in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, “We have people from Team USA, from all over the country, from all backgrounds, and people literally from all over the world for every other team so I obviously encourage everyone to use that platform to the best of their ability to do the most good that they possibly can in the world.”

Utah Royals FC was a club based in Salt Lake City from 2017 to 2020. The club has since ceased operations shifting its assets to the NWSL’s FC Kansas City. Since 2019, the coach of the US team and this women’s Olympic team has been Macedonian-American Vlatko Andonovski who has also coached for FC Kansas City.

United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) has four Olympic gold medals from 1996, 2004, 2008, and 2012.

This was the USWNT third game in Froup G pool play in Tokyo losing against Sweden and winning against New Zealand.

Their next match will be on Friday in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games against either the Nederlands or Brazil, depending on their competition outcomes. This nil-nil result is certainly an unusual one, not unlike the defeat by Sweden in the opener. Sweden and the US, via goal counts, Sweden with nine and USA with four, both advance with the US in second in the group.

It’s now on to the quarter-finals.