The US were comfortably outplayed by their opponents in their campaign opener. But they have come back from adversity before at the Games
Norway 2-0 USA. That was the score of the US women’s soccer team opener the last time the Olympics were played in Asia. The distance from Qinhuangdao, site of that 2008 game, to the final in Beijing seemed vast, and not just because the buses were so slow.
The result was no fluke. The US women by that point were a faint echo of their past selves. Without a professional league, the sport in the United States was in the doldrums. It seemed at the time that women’s soccer had used up its Warholian 15 minutes of fame.
