Guinea vs New Zealand

Allianz Riviera sets the stage for Guinea’s opening 2024 Olympic Games showdown against New Zealand.

Despite becoming the last of the 16 teams to qualify for this summer’s tournament with a win against Indonesia in an inter-confederation play-off earlier this year, Guinea head into this game as the odds-on favorite to get their first Olympic Games campaign in 56 years off to a flying start. Guinea manager Morlaye Cisse has named former Liverpool and RB Leipzig midfielder Naby Keita his captain, with the two remaining overage players, Le Havre’s Abdoulaye Touré and Anderlecht’s Amadou Diawara, bolstering the midfield department. There’s no shortage of experience at the helm, with Keita being part of the Liverpool squad that won the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League. But goals could be at a premium as eight of Guinea’s last 11 matches have featured two or fewer.

In the meantime, New Zealand might be set to participate in the Olympics for the fourth time in the last five tournaments, yet their chances of progressing past the group stages, as they did in 2020, are slim. They’ve established themselves as a supreme force in Oceanian football, as evidenced by a pair of overwhelming 8-0 and 9-0 wins over Vanuatu and Fiji, respectively, to qualify for the games. Unfortunately, New Zealand’s record at the Olympics is disastrous. They’ve only won one of their ten previous matches in the competition (D4, L4), averaging a meager 0.5 goals per game. Captain Michael Boxall isn’t a stranger to the tournament, as the 35-year-old defender played in Beijing in 2008.