As Paris prepares for the official start of the Olympic Games on Friday, an immovable object will collide with an unstoppable force.
The venue is Nice, the coastal city that hosted the final stage of the Tour de France a few days ago and is one of the hosts of the Olympic soccer tournament. On Thursday, the enigmatic U.S. women’s soccer team will face an up-and-coming team from Zambia.
Normally, the U.S. women have little trouble with countries with little soccer tradition. Five years ago, and some 950 km away in Reims, the U.S. scored 13 goals against Thailand, sparking a national debate over the Americans’ wild celebrations against an outmatched opponent at the World Cup. At the 2023 World Cup, the U.S. defeated Vietnam 28-0 in their opening match, though they managed to score only three goals.
Why is this match different? Check out the NWSL standings. The undefeated Orlando Pride are in first place. And if you’re looking for reasons why the Pride are leading the league, check out the NWSL top scorers list, where the first name on the list is Zambia’s Barbra Banda.
The 24-year-old striker’s success is no surprise. Three years ago in Tokyo, she had a hat-trick against the Netherlands and another against China. Orlando signed Banda earlier this year for the second-highest transfer fee ever paid in women’s football: $740,000. highest transfer fee – $787,600 – was paid a few weeks earlier when Bay FC signed Racheal Kundananji. Kundananji Also plays for Zambia.
Are we in for a surprise that could shake up the world of women’s football and give Zambia the best performance in a major international tournament by an African country since Nigeria reached the quarter-finals of the 1999 World Cup? (Nigeria also reached the quarter-finals of the 2004 Olympics, but only 10 teams competed in that year’s tournament.)
Probably not.
Back to Zambia’s aforementioned opening Olympic match in Tokyo against the Netherlands. Yes, Banda had a hat-trick, but Zambia lost that match 10-3. Banda’s second hat-trick, along with a goal from Kundananji, held up to a 4-4 draw with China. Their final group match, against Brazil, was a little less entertaining, ending in a 1-0 victory for the South Americans, a result that eliminated Zambia from the tournament.
Last year Zambia returned to the elite stage of the World Cup and secured their first victory at that level by beating Costa Rica 3-1, with Banda and Kundananji both scoring. Before that, however, they had lost by identical 5-0 scores to Spain and Japan, two teams who know how to keep the ball away from dangerous opponents.
However, Zambia pulled off a stunning win over Germany last year in the build-up to the World Cup, conceding two goals after 90 minutes but then winning 3-2 with Banda’s winning goal 12 minutes into injury time.
And in the friendlies leading up to this year’s Olympics, the U.S. hasn’t looked ready to reclaim its mantle as the world’s best team. In their last two games, the U.S. women have beaten Mexico 1-0 and drawn 0-0 with Costa Rica.
Note those zeros. American women see that score a lot.
Because if Banda is the unstoppable force, then Naomi Girma is the unshakable object.
From Joy Fawcett and Carla Overbeck in the 1990s to Becky Sauerbrunn in the 2010s, center backs have traditionally been a strength of the U.S. women’s national team. By the time she ends her career many years from now, the 24-year-old Girma may well be remembered as the best of the best.
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Girma made her national team debut two years ago, right after finishing her career at Stanford. That same year, she won the NWSL Rookie of the Year And Defender of the Year honors, an unprecedented double. She repeated her Defender of the Year title in 2023. She was also the first full-time defender to be named U.S. Soccer’s Female Player of the Year in 2023.
Like many players in her position, Girma’s best games often make her invisible, as she quietly shuts down the opponent’s most powerful attacking force. Stats don’t tell the story, though she completed 91% of her passes, tied with Sauerbrunn and Isabella Obaze for the NWSL management among defenders. A reel of her top plays will feature a few moments where she runs past an attacking player and plays the ball with confidence, but the most common highlight is simply an instance where she is in the right place at the right time to stifle an attack.
As fascinating as it will be to see if Girma and the U.S. defense can contain Banda, the bigger questions for the Americans lie up front. In last year’s World Cup, Girma and the U.S. defense did their job, giving up just one goal in four games, but the powerless offense went nearly four hours without scoring after Lindsey Horan’s equalizer in their second game. They missed Rose Lavelle, the 2019 World Cup Bronze Ball winner and one of the U.S. women’s greatest ever playmakers, sorely in the round of 16, when Sweden eliminated the U.S. on penalties following a 0-0 draw.
Lavelle’s fitness is perhaps the biggest problem for the US right now. She sat out the 0-0 draw against Costa Rica with a stiff groin. If Lavelle can come back and get the attack to score a few goals against Zambia, it would help calm the nerves of the US fans.
The bigger tests for the US women are coming up. On July 28, they face Germany. Three days later, it’s Australia, although Matildas star Sam Kerr will unfortunately miss due to an ACL injury.
Thursday’s game, however, is fun in its own right. It has the potential to be a high-scoring barnburner. And the game within the game pits one of the world’s best offensive forces against one of the world’s most formidable defensive walls.
Not a bad way to get things started, even before the opening ceremony.