Did the U.S. Olympic men’s soccer team nose-dive in Paris? No, but it’s complicated.

U.S. MEN’S SOCCER | ANALYSIS

Given the way that men’s soccer at the Olympics works, it’s pretty easy to make the case that the United States’ exit in the quarterfinals doesn’t mean much. That said, it doesn’t mean nothing, either.

For the uninitiated, more than just gender separates men’s and women’s soccer at the Olympic Games. FIFA, not wishing to allow anything that might smash its World Cup piggy bank, uses its power as soccer’s governing body to hamstring the men’s tournament, which is contested by under-23 teams and not full national teams.

(The reason that they don’t do this for the women’s tournament is because when women’s soccer was introduced to the Olympics in 1996, FIFA didn’t care enough about women’s soccer nor imagined anyone else ever would, either.)

Each men’s team can also bring three over-23 players to the tournament, but since club teams aren’t required to release players for the Olympics, these overage players tend to be either second-string national-teamers, or crusty old veterans who’ve earned the right to go and live their gold-medal dreams.

Compare the USA’s Olympic squad with their squad for this summer’s Copa América, which was contested by full national teams, and you’ll see what I mean. The USA had eight players in their Copa América squad who were young enough to be eligible for the Olympic team; none of them were in France for the Games. Of the three overage players the Americans brought, only center back Miles Robinson was also in the Copa América squad, and he didn’t play in that tournament.

It would therefore be easy to ignore the tournament, in terms of the larger picture for the U.S. men’s national team. The Olympic squad comprehensively handled New Zealand and Guinea but got waxed by France and Morocco. So we have an American men’s team that’s good enough to beat the small teams, but isn’t good enough to hang with the big ones — which would sound awfully familiar to longtime fans of the USMNT.

First, even making it to the quarterfinals is an accomplishment for this team. It’s just the second time the U-23 team has made it past the group stage. It’s the first time in American Olympic history that the men’s team won two games in regulation at a single Games. And for the USA, even making it to France is an accomplishment; the Americans hadn’t even managed to qualify since 2008. It’s all part of an overall picture of progress for the youth national teams on the men’s side.

On the flip side, though, the things that the senior men’s national team really needs — more than a new coach, more than a new system, more than anything else — are genuine top-level players. American men’s soccer has made huge progress over the past 30 years, to the point that it’s no longer abnormal for USA players to play for clubs in the top leagues in the world. But it’s also true that there’s a gulf between “players for world-class clubs” and “world-class players.”

On that front, the Olympic squad doesn’t have much hope to offer. If the team had a breakout star, it was Kevin Paredes, who played 29 times for mid-table VfL Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga last season — certainly a good player. But perhaps not one to really drive up the USMNT’s overall talent level.