Both the U.S. men’s and women’s teams will play in two cities during the first round of the Olympic soccer tournament this summer, and Women’s World Cup champion Norway will play all its first-round matches in Washington, D.C., according to the official schedule released Nov. 16.
The U.S. men play at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., July 20 and 22, and complete first-round play July 24 in Washington, D.C. The U.S. women play all of their first-round matches in Florida, with July 21 and 23 dates in Orlando and a July 25 game in Miami.
Sixteen teams compete in the men’s tournament: five from Europe, three from Africa, three from Asia, two from South America, one from CONCACAF, one from either Oceania or CONCACAF, and the U.S. as host. None of the regions has completed qualifying play.
For the draw to be held in May, the U.S. is seeded in Group A, and the other three groups will take their top seeds from South America, Europe and Africa.
In the women’s tournament, the U.S. is in Group E and Norway is in Group F. The remaining places will be drawn from those teams finishing highest in the Women’s World Cup: Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, Japan, and Sweden.
Tickets are available for all Olympic soccer matches except the men’s gold-medal game. Mail orders will be accepted until February, and order forms can be found on the Internet at http://www.atlanta.olympic.org, the home page of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.
For all other Olympic events, the deadline for mail orders is Dec. 1. Phone orders for Olympic soccer matches will be taken starting in February.