With the 2024 Olympics now firmly in our rear view, we take a look at what we learned from two thrilling gold medal football matches.
Three tantalizing weeks filled with jaw-dropping action, drama, and controversy have come to an end. The 2024 Paris Olympics was one for the books.
The quality and excitement found throughout the games was more than present in the football tournaments, with Spain outlasting host nation France in the men’s gold medal match, and the United States returning to the gold podium for the first time since 2012 with their victory over Brazil.
The men’s final gave us a thrilling extra time affair that saw braces from Barcelona’s Fermin Lopez and Rayo Vallecano’s Sergio Camello to give Spain its first Olympic gold medal in over 30 years in front of a hostile crowd at Parc de Princes.
One day later in the same stadium, the U.S. women’s national team ushered in the Emma Hayes era with a bang, securing the nation’s fifth gold medal in a cagey 1-0 win against a tough Brazilian side. Hayes’ squad didn’t drop a single point en route to the gold medal.
With the closing ceremonies well behind us, let’s take a look at some of the things we learned from the gold medal games at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
La Roja’s Dominance
With this Olympic gold medal, Spain now holds an obscene amount of silverware throughout the entire program. This summer alone, the Spanish men’s teams secured both the senior and U-19 European Championships before adding Olympic gold to their collection.
The footballing brilliance doesn’t just stop on the men’s side though — the La Roja women are currently World Champions at three levels. The senior team famously won the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and both of the U-17 and U-20 teams secured their respective World Cups in 2022. As if that wasn’t enough, their U-19 team also secured the UEFA U-19 European championship this summer.
This year, Spain also won the inaugural UEFA Women’s Nations League, a competition the men’s team are also the current holders of, further highlighting Spanish superiority in the international game on both sides.
In my opinion, Barcelona serves as the perfect microcosm of the Spanish national team and has for some time — their brilliance lies in their fearless promotion, empowerment, and utilization of their youth players.
In recent years this has been emphasized much more on the women’s side as well. With it, you can see the clear correlation between youth investment and continued success throughout the age groups. Players have begun to break into the women’s senior team earlier and make significant impacts when doing so.
Han callado muchas bocas. pic.twitter.com/4bHp0ZSPlb
— Som I Serem FCB (@Somhiseremfcb) August 9, 2024
The core of this men’s Olympic Gold medal-winning team all came through La Masia. The center back partnership of Eric Garcia and 17-year-old Pau Cubarsi was exemplary throughout, and Lopez bagged six goals — just two off the golden boot — from his free role behind the striker.
The performance throughout from the Spanish was exemplary, similar to the senior team just a month before in the EUROs. Spain became the first team to score five goals in an Olympic gold medal match, ending the tournament with an unreal 16 goals scored in six matches played. Only Morocco, the bronze medalists, scored more goals (17) than Spain in the Olympic Games.
Spain are the perfect model for sustainable national team success, and the past few summers have shown us they’re not slowing down anytime soon.
France Is in Good Hands
🙌❤️ The France #Olympics squad just love Thierry Henry! 😁 pic.twitter.com/JO2cWZ5aOw
— EuroFoot (@eurofootcom) August 10, 2024
Despite their loss in the men’s final, Les Blues can truly hold their heads high. Watching them play was a joy, and manager Thierry Henry set his charges up intending to win with style every game. It was spellbinding.
The final in particular gave us so much to admire about the French. The heart to battle back from two goals down in the last quarter of the game was a sight to behold, and they were well worth the two goals. The second-half display was the stuff a coach would dream of, and Henry was filled with nothing but pride at the end of the match.
New Bayern Munich star Michael Olise will garner most of the attention in this French team. He led all players in the Olympics with five assists (one of which came in the final) and bagged two goals on top of it. It was clear to all who watched that he was the player in this team that looked closest to a breakthrough at the senior level.
That’s not to say there weren’t any others who gave good accounts for themselves. Jean-Philippe Mateta continued his hot streak from the club football season and showed his big-time scoring ability on the world stage throughout the knockouts. Castello Lukeba and Loic Bade were rocks at the heart of the French defense and were a huge reason they conceded just one goal leading up to the final, and Désiré Doué showed in his limited game time why he looks to be PSG’s latest coup in the transfer window.
Les Blues continue to churn out a goldmine of quality young players, and France is in good hands.
New Coach, Same Mission
Emma Hayes has only been in the job for three months and she has already navigated her first massive test as USWNT head coach brilliantly.
After a dominant group stage, the knockout phases told the story of a team that was still gelling, learning how to function together under the instructions of a new coach, but finding a way regardless. Three successive 1-0 victories in the knockouts, all of them requiring extra time: That was what it took for the U.S. to get it done, and they did it the hard way.
The biggest takeaway is the feeling of a missed opportunity for all their opponents. If there was ever a time to get one over on an Emma Hayes-led U.S. team, it was this Olympic Games — still early on in her tenure, while she was still working through the growing pains of her new squad. Hayes only had four matches in charge before the games kicked off and she certainly made the most of them.
Bonafide star Sophia Smith echoed these sentiments in the leadup to the final saying, “We absolutely love her. She has worked every day to build our trust and show us that she really, genuinely cares about us not only as players, but as people.”
The U.S. didn’t just go undefeated in the Olympic Games on the way to gold, they won every single game they played. With the perfect foundation of success under Hayes now laid, women’s football should be very afraid of what’s to come for the red, white, and blue.
Marta’s Farewell and a New Era for Brazil
A LEGEND takes the pitch.
Marta is on for Brazil and receives the captain's armband.
📺 NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/3tvQuMlvLI
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2024
Football is a cruel, cruel game. Marta in her sixth and final Olympic games had the story set up for her to walk out on a high, but the Seleção fell agonizingly short, and the 38-year-old left in tears.
Throughout her career, Marta racked up six World Player of the Year awards, became Brazil’s record goalscorer, and notched up a plethora of records in between. Yet, with all the individual glory she has garnered, Olympic gold and the FIFA World Cup have always evaded her.
With the shadow of arguably the greatest women’s player the game has ever seen being cast over this Brazilian side, it’s fascinating to ponder what the future holds, especially with the 2027 Women’s World Cup to be hosted in the South American nation.
Marta’s red card in their final group stage match gave us insight into how the squad will potentially cope without their icon. A team that has always prided itself on beautiful free-flowing football, showed steel and grit in a bid to win at all costs.
Their opening knockout stage game against France showed this brilliantly. Without Marta and up against the odds versus the host nation that had gotten the better of them so many times in the past, Brazil found a way; behind a supreme penalty stop from Lorena and a winning goal from Gabi Portilho.
They followed this up with an emphatic 4-2 win over Spain, avenging the group-stage loss that saw Marta suspended in the process.
After a disappointing World Cup where they crashed out at the group stages, Brazil showed resilience and followed it up with back-to-back finals appearances in their next two major tournaments, the Gold Cup and the Olympic Games; both times losing to the U.S. Of the final four teams in the Olympics, Brazil had the youngest average starting XI age, and three more years of development before their home World Cup could be exactly what this team needs to end their long wait for the biggest prize in the game.
