Well, 2016 was, in many ways, a long ride down a short garbage chute. It just goes to show that sports are unpredictable and one moment you could be riding high on top of the world with a World Cup in your pocket while the next you get unceremoniously kicked out of the Olympics by Sweden.
The Olympic elimination wasn’t really all that unpredictable, though. From the roster choices to the play style, the team was wobbly going in and put together some scruffy performances throughout group. They might have advanced over Sweden if the ref hadn’t called back a patented “break glass here for Carli Lloyd” goal, but they still couldn’t really score beyond that, leading to what will hopefully become a renaissance period of callups for the team.