Miguel Solomons
Dailysports's expert
The host nation of the 2024 Olympic Games, France, will play in the final round of the group stage of the football tournament. Their opponent will be New Zealand, with the match scheduled for Wednesday, July 31, commencing at 21:00 Central European Time. Experts from Dailysports have prepared a forecast for this encounter.
New Zealand Woman
The New Zealand team still retains a purely theoretical chance of advancing to the quarter-finals of the football tournament at the 2024 Olympics. However, to achieve this, they must convincingly defeat the tournament hosts, France, as New Zealand has not managed a single win in the group thus far. Initially, they lost narrowly to Canada with a score of 1-2, followed by a 0-2 defeat to Colombia.
Currently, New Zealand has zero points and a goal difference of 1-4. Consequently, to progress further, they need to perform the extraordinary and thrash France. Historically, New Zealand has only advanced to the Olympic playoffs once, in 2012. On three other occasions, they exited at the group stage.
France Woman
The hosts of the Olympics are not performing as they had hoped, in my opinion. In their first game, they secured an incredibly hard-fought victory against Colombia, winning 3-2, though Colombia came close to equalizing in the second half after trailing 0-3. In the next match, they suffered a defeat. Against Canada, the French team took the lead just before halftime but failed to maintain their advantage in the second half.
Moreover, Canada scored the winning goal in the 90+12th minute. As a result, France has three points from two matches and still holds good chances for the playoffs, as they face the group's bottom team in the final round. Should Les Bleus secure the necessary result to advance to the playoffs, it will mark their third quarter-final appearance at the Olympics. Overall, this is France's third Olympic tournament, with their highest achievement being fourth place in 2012.
Interesting Facts and Head-to-Head Matches
- France and New Zealand have faced each other twice, with France winning both encounters: 2-1 and 3-0.
New Zealand Woman vs France Woman Prediction
France has yet to secure their playoff spot in the previous two matches, and now they have a favorable opportunity against the group's underdog. I am confident in the hosts' victory and will bet on France's individual total of over 2.5 goals with odds of 1.72.
