Olympics Women's Football Final Tips: Sweden will edge Canada to win gold

Dan Fitch thinks Sweden's consistency will see them beat Canada to gold in the final of the women's football, while he's tipping Australia to pull off a shock against USA.

Australia can complete nightmare for Americans

Olympics Women's Football Bronze Medal Match

Australia 5.0 v USA 1.77; The Draw 3.8
Thursday 5 August, 09:00

USA were the favourites to win gold, but will find themselves competing for the bronze medal against Australia on Thursday.

The 2019 World Cup holders remained favoured, despite a run of poor results during this competition. USA were beaten 3-0 by Sweden in their opening game of the group stage, before a 6-1 victory over New Zealand - which would prove to be their only win - and a 0-0 draw with Australia. They needed penalties to beat Netherlands in the quarter-finals after a 2-2 draw and then lost 1-0 to Canada in the semi-finals.

From five games, USA failed to score on three occasions. To put into perspective how much of a surprise this was, prior to the Olympics, the USA had scored in 73 consecutive games, stretching back to 2017.

The pressure will really be on the Americans to now claim the consolation prize of bronze, but having already drawn with them, Australia have no reason to be afraid. Though they came into these Olympics in poor form, Australia have performed well and claimed a major scalp in the quarter-finals when they defeated Great Britain in a 4-3 win.

Only Sweden - twice - have beaten Australia in this tournament and there looks to be more value in backing the outsiders, than expecting USA to finally come good. Australia are available at a big enough price that you can back them in the Double Chance market at 2.2, while they are 2.56 to win a medal, with USA at 1.4.

With the sides having drawn 0-0 in the group stage and both semi-finals only seeing one goal, there's no reason to expect the goals to suddenly flow. Under 2.5 goals is the outsider at 1.98

Consistent Sweden will get the job done

Olympics Women's Football Gold Medal Match

Sweden 1.9 v Canada 5.1; The Draw 3.3
Friday 6 August, 03:00

Sweden are expected to win gold when they meet Canada in the final of the women's football competition on Friday.

The Swedes are priced at 1.51 to win gold, ahead of Canada at 2.78. As much as Canada have proved themselves to be worthy opponents, the consistency of Sweden ensures that they have to be favoured.

Sweden have won all five of their games within 90 minutes, beating USA, Australia and New Zealand in the group stage, before defeating the hosts Japan in the quarter-finals and then Australia again in the semi-finals. From these five games, they have kept three clean sheets.

Canada have done brilliantly to reach this stage, having been major underdogs against both Brazil in the quarter-finals and USA in the semi-finals. Brazil were beaten on penalties after a 0-0 draw, while a late penalty from Jessie Fleming gave Canada a 1-0 win over USA. When you add in the fact that Canada claimed draws in the group stage against the hosts Japan and Great Britain, it's fair to say that they have faced a tougher path than Sweden.

Taking into account pre-Olympics friendlies, Canada are unbeaten in nine (W4 D5), keeping six clean sheets. Yet Sweden's unbeaten run stretches back 17 games (W14 D3), with eleven clean sheets.

Everything points to this being a tight match and under 2.5 goals is priced at just 1.47. The 0-0 half-time score is 2.4 and has paid out in each of Canada's last three matches. Sweden should just have enough to edge it and can be backed to win again at 1.9.




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