The U.S. men's Olympic team will face the Netherlands, NIgeria and Japan in a competitive Group B in the Beijing Olympic Games this summer.
Like the World Cup, the top two teams in each group -- there are four groups -- will advance into the next round. While the Netherlands and NIgeria are solid teams at the senior level, neither team qualified for the 2004 Athens Games. Of course, the U.S. also failed to qualify after needing to win in Mexico City to secure a berth. Japan finished last in their group in 2004, but because it is essentially an under-23 tournament, four years is a long time and teams that were once good could be terrible, while teams that were laughably bad good be amazing -- except, of course, the Argentineans who always seem to field strong youth sides.
Cote D'Ivoire, Argentina, Australia, and Serbia will compete in Group A. Host-country China, New Zealand, Brazil, and Belgium were selected for Group C, while Korea, Cameroon, Honduras, and Italy will clash in Group D.
Here's coach Peter Nowak on the draw from ussoccer.com:
“It’s a difficult group definitely, but that’s what we expect in a tournament that includes the top 16 teams in the world. They are very quality teams we will face and we have to be up to the challenge. This is a great challenge for us and we can gain a lot of experience from these kinds of games and this kind of tournament. The goal is still to go from the group stage to the second round.”
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