Women's Olympic soccer schedule: Complete dates, times, TV channels to watch every match from 2021 Tokyo Games

Simon Borg

Women's Olympic soccer schedule: Complete dates, times, TV channels to watch every match from 2021 Tokyo Games image

Can Canada pull it off and beat Sweden for the Olympic gold medal? After beating the No. 1-ranked U.S. women's national team in the semifinals, the Canadian women will enter their first gold-medal soccer match feeling they have what it takes to knock off the best team in the tournament thus far. 

The Canada vs. Sweden match was moved 10 hours by FIFA and Olympic organizers from a midday local start to the evening (8 a.m. ET on Friday), allowing the biggest match of the women's tournament to be played in the best available weather conditions, avoiding the midday heat.

The USWNT beat Australia in the women's bronze medal match, 4-3, with Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd stealing the show. It was the first-ever Olympic bronze medal for the USA women's team, which had previously played in five of six gold-medal matches all-time.

How to watch women’s Olympic soccer in USA

  • TV channels: NBCSN, USA Network, Olympic Channel
  • Spanish-language TV: Telemundo, Universo
  • Streams: fuboTV, NBCOlympics.com, NBC Sports app, Telemundo Deportes app, TelemundoDeportes.com

TV coverage of select matches from the women’s soccer tournament will be carried by five channels in the NBC family of networks in English and Spanish (match-by-match listings below).

Every soccer match from the men’s and women’s tournaments will be streamed on NBCOlympics.com (English), TelemundoDeportes.com (Spanish), the NBC Sports app and Telemundo Deportes app with user authentication (verification of cable/satellite subscription).

The NBC and Telemundo families of TV networks are also available on fuboTV (free 7-day trial) : NBC, NBCSN, USA Network, CNBC, Olympic Channel, Golf Channel, Telemundo and Universo.

Women’s Olympic soccer knockout schedule

NOTE: All matches will be streamed in the USA on NBCOlympics.com , TelemundoDeportes.com , NBC Sports app  and the  Telemundo Deportes app with user authentication.

Quarterfinals

Date Match  
Fri, July 30 QF 1: Canada 0, Brazil 0 (4-3 on PKs) Highlights
Fri, July 30 QF 2: Great Britain 3, Australia 4 (aet) Highlights
Fri, July 30 QF 3: Sweden 3, Japan 1 Highlights
Fri, July 30 QF 4: Netherlands 2, USA 2 (2-4 on PKs) Highlights

Monday, Aug. 2 (Semifinals)

Matches  
Semifinal 1: Canada 1, USA 0 Highlights
Semifinal 2: Australia 0, Sweden 1 Highlights

Thursday, Aug. 5 (Bronze-medal match)

Matches  
Bronze:  USA 4, Australia 3 Highlights

Friday, Aug. 6 (Gold-medal match)

Matches Time (ET) TV channels Stream
Gold/silver: Canada vs. Sweden 8 a.m. USA Network, Universo fuboTV

Women’s Olympic soccer: Tournament format

The women’s soccer tournament started out with a group phase that eliminated four of the 12 teams: New Zealand, China, Zambia and Chile The remaining eight moved on to the quarterfinals and the beginning of the knockout rounds.

Group stage: The 12 teams were split into Groups E, F and G, to avoid confusion with the men’s tournament groups A-D. The top two teams in each group automatically advanced along with the two best third-place teams (Japan and Australia).

The round-robin group stage awarded three points for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. Teams were ranked based on points accumulated with the first tiebreakers being goal difference and goals scored, in that order. If teams were still tied after the second tiebreaker, then there were other predetermined criteria .

Knockout rounds: The top eight teams moved on to a fixed-bracket, single-elimination knockout round that kicks off with the quarterfinals and then moving to the semifinals and finally the medal matches.

2021 Olympic women

Simon Borg

Simon Borg Photo

Simon Borg is a senior editor at The Sporting News who has covered football/soccer for over a decade. A supporter of Italian club Parma Calcio from his years growing up in Europe, he was previously a long-time member of Major League Soccer's digital media team, as a multimedia content producer, on-air personality, and Editor-in-Chief. Based in New York City, Borg is multilingual and has covered the domestic and global scene for TSN since 2021.