Live right here on this Wednesday on the early line
in Olympic action is now officially underway.
The first matches at the 2024 Summer Olympics have begun
as men's soccer is on the pitch over in France.
So to get you set for not only what we
are going to see as all 16 nations that are
involved in men's Olympic soccer play their opening match today,
but the entirety of the Summer Olympics in Paris.
Kyle Bond of The Sporting News joins us here.
You're live on this Wednesday morning.
Kyle, we appreciate the time.
Thank you for being here on this Wednesday.
On the early line, of course.
Of course.
Love it.
I mean this, this sport never ends.
You get done with club season, Copa America and EUR.
You get done with Copa America and EUR.
Right, on to the Olympics.
Let's go right on to Olympic soccer.
And what would it be, Kyle?
At the Olympiad, without a little bit of scandal, A
drone was flying over practice for New Zealand women's soccer.
As they get ready to begin the Olympics.
They're in the same group as Canada.
They noticed the drone and then they noticed who might
be flying it.
An unaccredited member of the Canadian women's national team has
been sent home.
And there's even more to dive through as it comes
to this story.
Kyle, what do you know about this drone scandal that
evolves in that involves the Canadian women's national team as
soccer gets underway in the Olympics?
And what is the discipline going to be?
Yeah, Well, Well, the second part we don't quite know
yet because we haven't really heard from the Olympic Committee
yet.
But New Zealand has filed an official complaint against Canada.
Yesterday, they noticed a drone was flying over practice.
They found the operator and Canada has pretty much quite
quickly pinned this, like you said, on an unaccredited member
of their staff, which is normal.
There's a lot of support staff that go into making
these tournaments and these trips happen, and not all of
them are allowed to be on the touchline during games
or even in the stadium for games.
But they've very quickly pinned it on this unaccredited member
of the staff.
They sent this member of the staff home and the
accredited coach that he reported to as well.
So they're sort of making this seem like an isolated
incident.
But they also did admit that this happened a second
time a few days ago.
So there was a second drone incident that hadn't gone
public yet.
So this happened twice at New Zealand training.
It's not great.
And head coach Bev Priesman will not coach the first
game against New Zealand because of this.
That is sort of a self-imposed thing that she has
come out and said, hey, it's not really appropriate for
me to coach.
You know, I'm disappointed in our staff, but I have
to hold myself responsible.
So this sort of has the feel of like an
NCAA self-imposed postseason ban, right to go, hey, we're punishing
ourselves, please don't punish us more.
And would like to say, Kyle, if you ain't cheating,
you ain't trying here.
So Canada women, I might just go right now to
the Bandola sports book and lay a wager on that
because I like this.
You fly the drone overhead.
You say you didn't do it.
You take a coach that's probably not your primary coach.
You send them home and you got all the footage
and you go into that game against New Zealand and
can probably win.
But we'll see what happens there in that.
Let's talk about the actual tournament itself from a men's
perspective.
A lot of people watching soccer in the Olympics just
figure it's business as usual.
But Kyle explained to us sort of the format that
we have in the Olympics with men's soccer here.
Yes, so the men's side of the Olympic tournament is
a youth tournament.
And the reason for that is there's already bigger men's
tournaments in the summer that the first team senior players
go to, like the Copa America and the EUR.
So the Olympics sort of understands their place in the
soccer world when it comes to the men's side.
And so they've made it a youth tournament.
There are a few side effects that come with that.
The first being you are allowed three over age players.
So a number of players who either didn't make the
Copa America or EUR squads or who might have been
there but the team didn't qualify, whatever it may be,
get to play on the team but you only get
three of them.
The second thing is clubs are allowed to refuse call
UPS for players to the Olympics because it's a youth
tournament and they're allowed to refuse call ups for any
youth tournament around the world.
So that made roster construction a little bit more difficult,
especially for the top teams.
I know the the US had to deal with that
a little bit.
So the players that are at the Olympics are kind
of a mishmash of not your best youth players, but
almost your best youth players and then a mix of
a, a few veterans who aren't first team quality, but
just below that.
And, and that makes it a little wonky.
And, and when you're betting this tournament on the men's
side, just remember the gap in talent between the top
teams and the bottom teams is much smaller because at
the youth level, even the most talented players aren't developed.
So upsets are very common at tournaments like this.
That is a very good point, Kyle.
Thank you for bringing that up.
We're already underway with Olympic action.
The first two matches, Argentina and Morocco deep into the
first half, still scoreless at nil, nil there.
Spain, of course, the Champions of the EUR there.
You side pretty good, A1 nil lead early over Uzbekistan.
So, Kyle, as we look at the odds, the host
nation who Team USA takes on to start their Olympic
soccer on the men's side a little bit later this
afternoon, France is booked as the favorite plus two, 10-30
cents in front of Argentina, plus 240 in Spain rounds
out the top three at plus 280 before we see
that large drop off to Morocco at 14 to one.
Does that feel fair?
Those three teams on their own peg by themselves, separated
by just $0.70 before greater than an $11.00 drop off
to everybody else in the field.
Yeah, it does.
There is some value out there on those underdogs cuz
like I mentioned, the favorites don't always do the job
here at youth tournaments, but it does seem fair based
on the talent.
I love Spain.
They, they just have such a good team.
You know, like I said, you don't get the best
youth players.
So guys like Laminia Mall who's just 17 won't be
there cuz he just participated heavily at the EUR.
But there's still a really, really strong contingent of players
on this Spain team.
They've got Firmin Lopez and and Pao Kubarsi who are
both Barcelona players and have broken into the team.
Kubarsi is a 17 year old center back.
Just a ton of young talent on that Spain team.
The host bump is real, so France should make it
deep into this tournament.
Argentina have a really, really tough group and I think
it'll be a struggle for them to get really far.
If you're looking for value, I you know, Morocco is
a very talented team, but I like Ukraine.
They always produce good young talent.
I really like Uzbekistan.
They're holding their own against Spain right now and I
think they could make some noise later in the group
stage.
They've got a a really good overage striker in Shimodorov,
who plays for Roma, has been injured for a lot
of the past year, year and a half, but it's
finally healthy and they brought him to the Olympics as
sort of a leader, really good goal scorer.
And so I, I think Uzbekistan could make some noise
as you're looking for a really big long shot Team
USA to win this tournament, a + 2400 price.
But they do have their opener today, this afternoon at
3:00 PM Eastern.
Kyle, if we take a look there, France money line
favorite -240 if you take the United States, it's A
+ 600 and the draw option at A + 360.
What are the expectations for the US?
And also, what can we anticipate from today's game?
Yeah, the US will be expected to make it out
of the group, but I don't know if they will.
They're just the roster is really uninspiring.
A couple of guys got left home, a few because
of club refusals.
I know Diego Luna wasn't even called up, which is
mind boggling.
He's having an unreal season for Real Salt Lake and
MLS right now.
But it's just an uninspiring roster.
They had to pull two both starting center backs from
the overage pool.
So Miles Robinson and Walker Zimmerman will both be starting
at center back for the USI just don't see it.
You know, they they're so overmatched.
But against some of these other good teams like France,
you know, they beat France in a friendly a few
months ago, but it was a a skeleton France squad.
I just don't see it happening for them.
They're not going to make it that far.
The host nation, the French very heavily favored in this
opening match.
We were supposed to make it out of the group
at Copa America, too.
We didn't do that.
But now, Kyle, we can't even blame Greg Berhalter.
So who knows what we'll have for the Americans at
the Olympic Games.
Kyle Bond of Sporting News joining us here.
You'll see him throughout these 2 1/2 weeks over in
Paris to get us set for everything we need to
know at the Olympic Games.
Kyle, we appreciate the time.