The group stage of the Women’s Olympics Soccer tournament in London is now complete with Great Britain pulling off an upset win over Brazil in the last match of the day. Eight of the original four teams have now claimed their spot in the quarterfinals which will begin on August 3rd. The four teams that will not be progressing include Cameroon, South Africa, Korea DPR and Colombia. Here are the quarterfinal match-ups:
- Great Britain vs Canada
- USA vs New Zealand
- Brazil vs Japan
- Sweden vs France
Great Britain pulled off the big win over Brazil today to avoid playing the defending World Cup Champion Japanese team in the quarterfinals. This is also a very good match-up for Canada, as Great Britain was not one of the favorites in this tournament (they were 6th favorites coming into the tournament, while Canada was 7th). The winner of Great Britain and Canada will likely face the USA, who should have no trouble with New Zealand, for a spot in the finals.
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In the other half the Brazil vs Japan is a huge match between two of the sports heavy weights (2nd and 3rd pre-tournament favorites respectively). The road to a gold medal is now very hard for either of these teams as whoever pulls out the win will have another tough match against a Swedish team that topped the tough Group F standings and a French team that has only lost to the top ranked Americans (4th and 5th favorites).
Olympics Women’s Soccer Winner Odds
Now that the quarterfinals and the road to the gold medal has been set the odds for each team to win the tournament have been adjusted and are as follows:
The odds are based on the best odds available on each team at the time of this post:
- USA 11/8
- Great Britain 5/1
- Brazil 7/1
- France 8/1
- Japan 9/1
- Sweden 12/1
- Canada 33/1
- New Zealand 150/1
Place your bets at 5Dimes.eu if you are from the United States and SportsInteraction.com is you are from elsewhere.
Prediction
You have to like the United States chances to win the tournament, especially now that they have an easy quarterfinal match against New Zealand. They will easily advance to the semi-finals and even there USA will be big favorites against either the Great Britain or Canadian team. In the finals the USA will be the favorites against anyone who manages to get out of the difficult other side.
You can see simply by the odds that anyone from the opposite side of the draw as the United States has the ability to make the finals. Brazil is the favorites at 7/1 to win the tournament, but even Sweden at 12/1 has a legitimate shot. I personally like the Japanese at 9/1 and think they are being slightly overlooked in this tournament now that they have a very difficult quarterfinal match against Brazil. They did bring this on themselves however when they failed to defeat a weak South African team today, but I expect them to bounce back.
I like USA at 11/8 and Japan at 9/1 to win the gold in this tournament. I also kind of like Canada at 33/1 because they are kind of being overlooked even though they have played some solid soccer and look to have put their poor showing at the 2011 World Cup behind them. At such long odds they aren’t a horrible bet either.
Visit 5Dimes.eu (Americans) or SportsInteraction.com (Canadians and International) to bet on the 2012 Women’s Soccer Tournament at the London Olympics.
Keep up with the action at the official London Olympics Womens Soccer page.
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