The Canada vs. Sweden match was moved 10 hours by FIFA and Olympic organizers from a midday local start to the evening (8 a.m. ET on Friday), allowing the biggest match of the women’s tournament to be played in the best available weather conditions, avoiding the midday heat.
The USWNT beat Australia in the women’s bronze medal match, 4-3, with Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd stealing the show. It was the first-ever Olympic bronze medal for the USA women’s team, which had previously played in five of six gold-medal matches all-time.
How to watch women’s Olympic soccer in USA
TV channels: NBCSN, USA Network, Olympic Channel Spanish-language TV: Telemundo, Universo Streams: fuboTV, NBCOlympics. com, NBC Sports app, Telemundo Deportes app, TelemundoDeportes. com
TV coverage of select matches from the women’s soccer tournament will be carried by five channels in the NBC family of networks in English and Spanish (match-by-match listings below).
Every soccer match from the men’s and women’s tournaments will be streamed on NBCOlympics.com (English), TelemundoDeportes.com (Spanish), the NBC Sports app and Telemundo Deportes app with user authentication (verification of cable/satellite subscription).
The NBC and Telemundo families of TV networks are also available on fuboTV (free 7-day trial) : NBC, NBCSN, USA Network, CNBC, Olympic Channel, Golf Channel, Telemundo and Universo.
Women’s Olympic soccer knockout schedule
NOTE: All matches will be streamed in the USA on NBCOlympics.com , TelemundoDeportes.com , NBC Sports app and the Telemundo Deportes app with user authentication.
Quarterfinals
Monday, Aug. 2 (Semifinals)
Thursday, Aug. 5 (Bronze-medal match)
Friday, Aug. 6 (Gold-medal match)
Women’s Olympic soccer: Tournament format
The women’s soccer tournament started out with a group phase that eliminated four of the 12 teams: New Zealand, China, Zambia and Chile The remaining eight moved on to the quarterfinals and the beginning of the knockout rounds.
Group stage: The 12 teams were split into Groups E, F and G, to avoid confusion with the men’s tournament groups A-D. The top two teams in each group automatically advanced along with the two best third-place teams (Japan and Australia).
The round-robin group stage awarded three points for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. Teams were ranked based on points accumulated with the first tiebreakers being goal difference and goals scored, in that order. If teams were still tied after the second tiebreaker, then there were other predetermined criteria .
Knockout rounds: The top eight teams moved on to a fixed-bracket, single-elimination knockout round that kicks off with the quarterfinals and then moving to the semifinals and finally the medal matches.
