5. Put the Hammer Down

"Early in the fourth set, you could see on the faces of the Americans that there were under a lot of pressure and starting to crack for sure," said Fabiana. "That's when I knew we had it."

Brazil is known for being streaky. When they’re hot, they’re hot. But if you can bust their bubble and slow their raucous celebrations during matches, you can douse a little water on them long enough to get the momentum back on your side.

The U.S. women were able to fight back to within two points, but they weren’t able to extinguish Brazil’s fire.

Brazil never let up on the pressure. They never started to doubt that they could pull this off. They never gave the Americans a real chance to get back into the game. They only needed one chance at game point to finish it off. They kept the pedal to the medal until the last ball dropped.

Put all these things together and Brazil deserved to leave London with the gold medal around their necks. They are not the better team, but they played better than the U.S. on the right night. Now they’ll enter the 2016 Olympics on their home court as the reigning two-time gold medalists.

The U.S. will give them a run for their money, as most of the 2012 Olympians will probably return. But they’ll have a tougher road in front of them as they’re likely to play in a gold medal match in front of thousands of the incomparable Brazilian fans. There will probably be 30,000 of them, all clad in green and yellow, drumming and singing so loudly that the Americans won’t be able to hear themselves think.

If you think that these women won’t be plotting their revenge for the next four years and dreaming about silencing that crowd, you don’t know competitive athletes. The raucous celebration that ensued after the final point and on into the medal ceremony is one that will be etched in the memories of the players for the next four years. There is still a chance for this group to win that gold medal that they’ve now been denied three times. p>

The grudge match is on for 2016.