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00:00live right here on this Wednesday on the early line and
00:07Olympic action is now officially underway. The first
00:10matches at the 2024 Summer Olympics have begun as men's
00:16soccer is on the pitch over in France. So, to get you set for
00:20not only what we are going to see as all sixteen nations that
00:23are involved in men's Olympic soccer play their opening match
00:27today but the entirety of the Summer Olympics in Paris, Kyle
00:31Bond of the Sporting News joins us here live on this Wednesday
00:34morning. Kyle, we appreciate the time. Thank you for being
00:37here on this Wednesday on the early line. Of course, of
00:40course, love it. I mean, this this sport never ends. You get
00:43done with club season, Copa America and Euros. You get done
00:46with Copa America and Euros right on to the Olympics. Let's
00:48go. Right on to Olympic soccer and what would it be Kyle at
00:53the Olympiad without a little bit of scandal. A drone was
00:58flying over practice for New Zealand women's soccer as they
01:02get ready to begin the Olympics. They're in the same
01:05group as Canada. They noticed the drone and then they noticed
01:09who might be flying it. An unaccredited member of the
01:13Canadian women's national team has been sent home and there's
01:18even more to dive through as it comes to this story. Kyle, what
01:23do you know about this drone scandal that evolves and that
01:26involves the Canadian women's national team as soccer gets
01:30underway in the Olympics and what is the discipline going to
01:33be? Yeah, well, the second part we don't quite know yet
01:37because we haven't really heard from the Olympic Committee yet
01:40but New Zealand has filed an official complaint against
01:43Canada. Yesterday, they noticed a drone was flying over
01:46practice. They found the operator and Canada has pretty
01:51much quite quickly pinned this like you said on an
01:55unaccredited member of their staff which is normal. There's
01:58a lot of support staff that go into making these tournaments
02:02and these trips happen and not all of them are allowed to be
02:04on the touchline during games or even in the stadium for
02:08games but they've very quickly pinned it on this
02:12unaccredited member of the staff. They sent this member of
02:16the staff home and the accredited coach that he
02:20reported to as well. So, they're sort of making this
02:25seem like an isolated incident but they also did admit that
02:28this happened a second time a few days ago. So, there was a
02:33second drone incident that hadn't gone public yet. So,
02:37this happened twice at New Zealand training. It's not
02:41great and head coach Bev Priestman will not coach the
02:45first game against New Zealand because of this. That is sort
02:48of a self-imposed thing that she has come out and said, hey,
02:51it's not really appropriate for me to coach. You know, I'm
02:54disappointed in our staff but I have to hold myself
02:58responsible. So, this sort of has the feel of like an NCAA
03:03self-imposed postseason ban, right? To go, hey, we're
03:06punishing ourselves. Please don't punish us more. And we
03:10like to say, Kyle, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying
03:13here. So, Canada women, I might just go right now to the
03:15Sportsbook and lay a wager on that because I like this. You
03:19fly the drone overhead. You say you didn't do it. You take a
03:22coach that's probably not your primary coach. You send them
03:24home and you got all the footage and you go into that
03:26game against New Zealand and can probably win. But we'll see
03:29what happens there in that. Let's talk about the actual
03:32tournament itself from a men's perspective. A lot of people
03:34watching soccer in the Olympics just figure it's business as
03:37usual. But Kyle, explain to us sort of the format that we have
03:40in the Olympics with men's soccer here. Yeah, so the men's
03:44side of the Olympic tournament is a youth tournament and the
03:48reason for that is there's already bigger men's tournaments
03:51in the summer that the first team senior players go to like
03:56the Copa America and the Euros. So, the Olympics sort of
03:59understands their place in the soccer world when it comes to
04:03the men's side and so they've made it a youth tournament and
04:05there are a few side effects that come with that. The first
04:10being you are allowed three overage players. So, a number
04:13of players who either didn't make the Copa America or Euros
04:16squads or who might have been there but the team didn't
04:21qualify, whatever it may be, get to play on the team but you
04:25only get three of them. The second thing is clubs are
04:30allowed to refuse call-ups for players to the Olympics because
04:34it's a youth tournament and they're allowed to refuse
04:36call-ups for any youth tournament around the world. So,
04:39that made roster construction a little bit more difficult.
04:43Especially for the top teams. I know the US had to deal with
04:46that a little bit. So, the players that are at the
04:49Olympics are kind of a mishmash of not your best youth players
04:54but almost your best youth players and then a mix of a few
04:59veterans who aren't first team quality but just below that and
05:03that makes it a little wonky and when you're betting this
05:06tournament on the men's side, just remember the gap in talent
05:10between the top teams and the bottom teams is much smaller
05:14because at the youth level, even the most talented players
05:18aren't developed. So, upsets are very common at tournaments
05:22like this. That is a very good point, Kyle. Thank you for
05:26bringing that up. We're already underway with Olympic action.
05:30The first two matches, Argentina and Morocco deep into
05:33the first half. Still scoreless at nil nil there. Spain, of
05:37course, the champions of the Euros. Their youth side pretty
05:41good. A one nil lead early over Uzbekistan. So, Kyle, as we
05:45look at the odds, the host nation who team USA takes on to
05:49start their Olympic soccer on the men's side a little bit
05:52later this afternoon. France is booked as the favorite. Plus
05:55210. 30 cents in front of Argentina. Plus 240 in Spain
06:00rounds out the top three at plus 280 before we see that
06:02large drop off to Morocco at fourteen to one. Does that feel
06:07fair? Those three teams on their own peg by themselves
06:10separated by just 70 cents before greater than an 11
06:13dollar drop off to everybody else in the field. Yeah, it
06:17does. Um there is some value out there on those underdogs
06:20because like I mentioned, the favorites don't always do the
06:24job here at youth tournaments but it does seem fair based on
06:27the talent. I love Spain. Uh they they just have such a good
06:31team. You know, like I said, you don't get the best youth
06:33players. So, guys like Lamine Yamal who's just 17 won't be
06:37there because he just participated heavily at the
06:39Euros but there's still a really really strong contingent
06:42of players on the Spain team. Um they've got Fermin Lopez uh
06:46and um Pau Cubarsi who are both Barcelona players and have
06:51broken into the team. Cubarsi is a 17 year old center back.
06:54Just a ton of young talent on that Spain team. The host bump
06:57is real. So, France should make it deep into this tournament.
07:01Argentina have a really really tough group. Uh and I and I
07:05think it'll be a struggle for them to get really far. If
07:08you're looking for value, I uh you know, Morocco is a very
07:12talented team but I I like Ukraine. They always produce
07:16good young talent. I really like Uzbekistan. They're
07:19holding their own against Spain right now and I think they
07:22could make some noise later in the group stage. Um they've got
07:25a a really good overage striker in uh who plays for
07:31Roma has been injured for a lot of the past year, year and a
07:34half but it's finally healthy and they brought him to the
07:36Olympics as sort of a leader. Really good goal scorer. Uh and
07:39so I I think Uzbekistan could make some noise as you're
07:42looking for a really big long shot. Team USA to win this
07:45tournament, a plus 2400 price but they do have their opener
07:48today this afternoon at 3 PM Eastern. Kyle, if we take a
07:51look there, France, Moneyline favorite minus 240. If you take
07:54the United States, it's a plus 600 and the draw option at a
07:57plus 360. What are the expectations for the US and
08:00also what can we anticipate from today's game? Yeah, the
08:04US will be expected to make it out of the group but I don't
08:08know if they will. They're just the roster is really
08:10uninspiring. A couple of guys got left home. A few because of
08:14club uh refusals. I I know Diego Luna wasn't even called
08:19up which is mind boggling. He's having an unreal season for
08:22Real Salt Lake and MLS right now but uh it's just an
08:26uninspiring roster. They had to pull to both starting
08:30center backs from the overage pool. So, Miles Robinson and
08:33Walker Zimmerman will both be starting at center back for the
08:35US. I just don't see it. Uh you know, they they're so
08:38overmatched against some of these other good teams like
08:41France. Uh you know, they beat France in a friendly a few
08:43months ago but it was uh uh a skeleton France squad. I just
08:47don't see it happening for them. They're not gonna make
08:49it that far. The host nation, the French very heavily
08:53favored in this opening match. We were supposed to make it out
08:57of the group that Copa America two. We didn't do that but now
09:00Kyle, we can't even blame Greg Berhalter. So, who knows what
09:04we'll have for the Americans at the Olympic Games. Kyle Bond of
09:07Sporting News joining us here. You'll see him throughout these
09:10two and a half weeks over in Paris to get us set for
09:13everything we need to know at the Olympic Games. Kyle, we
09:16appreciate the time.