- United States (also known as USA)
women's soccer team plays in 2008 Olympics without leading scorer Abby Wambach, with a broken leg injury. in the team's last pre-Olympic exhibition.
- In 2008, Hope Solo is back in goal as the full-time starter for United States (also known as USA) .
- Angela Hucles and Natasha Kai have emerged as new scoring threats for the United States (also known as USA)
- In 2007, Brazil (also known as BRA)
exposed the Americans' lack of imagination the most in a historic 4-0 semifinal victory, but even when the United States (also known as USA) was winning, it was doing so with brute force, overly defensive tactics and a reliance on thumping long balls to forwards Abby Wambach and Kristine Lilly.
"It killed us to play that way," Solo says now. "In our hearts, we weren't proud. It was bad soccer."
- Kristine Lilly is not going to the 2008 Olympics, as she took time off to have her first child.
- Coach Pia Sundhage has junked the long-ball approach of 2007 and instituted a ground-based short-passing attack that goes through the midfield and not over it.
"We stripped our team of everything we knew about the game of soccer and implemented a new style of play," Solo says. "It's supposed to be a beautiful game. You're supposed to knock the ball around, go through the midfield, change the point of attack. Our goal is to win the gold medal, but it's also about how we win the gold. It's about playing the best soccer we can play, beating teams with class on the field and showing that we understand the game."
Such sweeping changes are a lot to ask from the coach and especially from the team, which is why the thing I'm most looking forward to in China is whether the U.S. women can win again -- and win with style. (Their opening match is scheduled for Aug. 6, 2008, against Norway (also known as NOR) 
.)
From the time women's soccer became an Olympic sport in 1996, the United States (also known as USA) 
has never gone through a two-year World Cup/Olympics cycle without winning at least one of the tournaments. But last year's World Cup failure and the loss of Wambach (the team's best player) now present the U.S. with perhaps the stiffest challenge in the program's storied history.
Now that the Yanks are playing through the midfield again, they're a lot more fun to watch. New scoring threats have emerged in Natasha Kai, Carli Lloyd, Amy Rodriguez and Angela Hucles.
"We've been playing some really good soccer, and we can score some fantastic goals," says Lloyd. "There are so many different scoring options. It's not just one or two people."
