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SANDY — The U.S. Soccer Women’s National Team was figuratively sent off to the London Olympics Saturday after defeating rival Canada, 2-1, at Rio Tinto Stadium, with 16,508 fans cheering the team on.
Conditions were quite different this time around versus two years ago when the Women’s National Team entered Rio Tinto and played on a field covered in snow, but the team celebrated its winning goal the exact same way.
Snow angels on the pitch.
“We wanted to pay tribute to all those fans that watched us play here in the snow,” said Women’s National Team forward Abby Wambach. “Salt Lake City fans are special, they get the game, they showed up today, and that was our celebration with them to show them how much we care about them coming and supporting us as well.”
The celebration took place following Women’s National Team midfielder Amy Rodriguez’s 85th minute goal after coming off the bench and entering the match in the 51st minute.
Women’s National Team midfielder Megan Rapinoe called the fan support “unbelievable,” and said, “They were good to us a couple years ago when we came here with all the snow. We’re always happy to come back here.”
Rodriguez agreed with Rapinoe about the amount of fans that showed up to watch the match Saturday.
“This was a perfect pre-Olympic game for us. Canada is such a great team, they always put up a great fight and (are) difficult to play against,” said Rodriguez. “In front of all of these enthusiastic and animated fans, it was just a lot of motivation out there, and it made us feel confident now going into the Olympics.”
Women’s National Team goalkeeper Hope Solo also agreed with her teammates and was nothing but grateful for the turnout and support.
“I keep saying it, we’ve had great fan support,” said Solo. “Not just in Utah, you know, my graciousness goes out to Utah, but we’ve had such great support since the World Cup this entire last year in every city we’ve been to across the country, and that’s just a testament to how far the game has come, how far the women’s game has come and really the quality of play that we’ve brought to the United States. So we’re hoping that people just ride that wave of excitement from the World Cup into the Olympics.”
However, before jetting off to London for the Olympics, the team will take a nine-day break.
But after watching this match, Women’s National Team head coach Pia Sundhage is confident in her 2012 Olympic roster, saying, “We’re ready, we’re ready.”
