How will the U.S. men’s soccer team do at the Olympics? Here’s our prediction.

The U.S. men’s soccer program is going to have a rude welcome to its first time playing in the Olympics in 16 years.

Not only must the Americans face host France in the group stage, but it’s their first game of the tournament.

At least it will be over after that, and the U.S. then will play winnable games against Guinea — which it beat, 3-0, in March, though that Guinea squad wasn’t as good as its Olympic one — and New Zealand.

The path is there for Jack McGlynn, Nathan Harriel, Paxten Aaronson, and company to get out of the group stage and reach the quarterfinals. Doing so would generate great buzz for the program, with the amplification that the Olympics especially provide.

» READ MORE: The Union’s Jack McGlynn makes the U.S. Olympic soccer team, opening the door to stardom

But that’s when the real pain will come. The draw dictates that the second-place team from the U.S.’s Group A will face the winner of Group B, which is led by Argentina.

That means a likely encounter with a team that is just as much of a gold-medal favorite as the home team. Argentina’s overage players include striker Julián Álvarez (who’s still young, at 24) and centerback Nicolás Otamendi (36), both of whom were just on the Albiceleste’s Copa América-winning squad.

Their teammates include a fast-rising star in 18-year-old playmaker Claudio Echeverri, and a familiar face in midfielder Thiago Almada, who just made an MLS-record $21 million move from Atlanta United to Brazil’s Botafogo, with a future move to France’s Lyon in the cards.

If the U.S. had been drawn into the spot where the tournament’s other Concacaf team, the Dominican Republic, is, it would have landed in a group with Spain. That would have been a stiff test, too, but the quarterfinal would have been much easier: the winner of a group with Israel, Japan, Mali, and Paraguay.

The expectation here is for the U.S. to win the games it can and battle valiantly in the others.

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Argentina, France, and Spain are the medal favorites, and France will have to beat the other two to win it all. Les Bleus have the firepower, with an attack led by forwards Alexandre Lacazette and Michael Olise, but are just a little too shorthanded at other positions.

Because the Olympics is a youth-age-group tournament at its core, club teams aren’t required to release players the way they are for the World Cup, Euros, Copa América, and so on. That meant France manager Thierry Henry didn’t get all the players he wanted, even with his and the tournament’s stature on home turf.

That gives Argentina just enough of an edge to be the pick for gold. It would be the country’s first Olympic title since 2008, when the squad included a 21-year-old Lionel Messi. (And a 20-year-old Sergio Agüero, a 20-year-old Ángel Di María, and a 30-year-old Juan Román Riquelme.)

There’s no Messi on this team, but there’s plenty of talent and a big gun up top in Álvarez. It’s his turn to take the lead, as he seems primed to do for his country for some time to come.

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Gold: Argentina

Silver: France

Bronze: Spain

Times listed are Philadelphia time. All of NBC’s video streaming of the Olympics is available free with pay-TV provider authentication at NBCOlympics.com, or via subscription on Peacock.

July 24: vs. France at Marseille, Olympics group stage, 3 p.m. (USA Network, Telemundo 62)

July 27: vs. New Zealand at Marseille, Olympics group stage, 1 p.m. (USA Network, Telemundo 62)

July 30: vs. Guinea at Saint-Étienne, Olympics group stage, 1 p.m. (USA Network, Telemundo 62)

Aug. 2: Quarterfinal at Bordeaux (if group winner), 3 p.m. (Universo, English TBD), or Paris (if runner-up), 9 a.m. (Telemundo, English TBD)

Aug. 5: Semifinal at Lyon (if group winner), 3 p.m. (USA Network, Telemundo 62), or Marseille (if group runner-up), noon (E!, Telemundo 62)

Aug. 8: Bronze-medal game at Nantes, 11 a.m. (English TBD, Telemundo 62)

Aug. 9: Gold-medal game at Paris, noon (USA Network, Telemundo)