U.S. men’s soccer team knows Olympic future likely on the line against New Zealand

MARSEILLE, France — The United States men’s soccer team earned respect despite losing to France 3-0 in its opening game at the Paris Olympics. Now it needs points.

The U.S. faces New Zealand in Marseille on Saturday knowing another loss likely would end its chance of advancing to the quarterfinals before its final group-stage game is played.

“We’re not going to give up no matter what the situation is. You know, just one loss, shake it off and go to the next one,” defender Nathan Harriel told The Associated Press on Friday.

New Zealand’s 2-1 victory over Guinea has put it in a strong position to advance from Group A. It is second behind France on goal difference.

The U.S. is at the bottom of the group after conceding three second-half goals against France — but for a long period held its own against the host nation.

Had Djordje Mihailovic’s second-half shot found the top corner, rather than the crossbar, when the game was still goalless, the Americans might have been on course for an upset.

Instead, goals from Alexandre Lacazette, Michael Olise and Loic Bade sealed a victory for the French, whose coach, Thierry Henry, admitted were pushed hard by the Americans.

“The game plan of the coach was excellent,” he said.

While that was a compliment to Marko Mitrovic, the U.S. coach still has the task of getting his team back on track ahead of Saturday’s critical game.

“It’s always nice to hear from colleagues that certain things that we wanted to do caused them certain problems,” Mitrovic said. “We play the game, we give everything, we learn and we move forward. We are now two days after the game and no matter what was the score or outcome for certain games, there is a moment where we have to stop thinking about that and just move forward.”

Henry had been surprised by America’s low block, which restricted France chances until Lacazette’s breakthrough goal.

Mitrovic said he would deploy different tactics against New Zealand. That is likely to see the U.S. pressing higher up the field to pose more of an attacking threat.

This is the men’s team’s first Olympic appearance since Beijing in 2008. It failed to advance from the group stage back then, but despite the loss to France, there is confidence among the players that they can reach the knockout round this time.

“There were so many positives and without being naive, I really don’t think the score reflected the way that we played and I think everyone feels the same way,” U.S. forward Griffin Yow said. “We showed who we are and it’s not like we’re just saying that we had a perfect game because a loss is a loss at the end of the day. But we’re really taking the positives and also looking at the things that we could improve on, we could do better and just trying to be our best for the next match.”

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