Former US President Donald Trump has criticised the US women’s football team in a bizarre rant, despite the side clinching a bronze medal today at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Trump, who was succeeded by Joe Biden as US President in January, released a statement hours after the USWNT defeated Australia 4-3 in the bronze-medal match.

"If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn’t woke, they would have won the Gold Medal instead of the Bronze," Trump said.

"Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad, and our soccer team certainly has. There were, however, a few Patriots standing. Unfortunately, they need more than that respecting our Country and National Anthem."

Trump also criticised midfielder Megan Rapinoe, who scored two stunning goals during the bronze-medal match: "They should replace the wokesters with Patriots and start winning again. The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about Radical Left politics and not doing her job!"

Rapinoe opened the scoring against Australia in the eighth minute, curving the ball into the back of the net directly from a corner. Matildas star striker Sam Kerr hit back with an equaliser just minutes later, but Rapinoe was soon back on the scoresheet with an impressive first-time volley.

Carli Lloyd then made it 3-1 to the Americans just before half-time. The US looked set to win the clash comfortably after Lloyd got her second goal in the 51st minute, but Caitlin Foord scored for Australia in the 54th minute and Emily Gielnik grabbed a goal just minutes before full-time to produce a nervy conclusion to the game.

The American team managed to hang on to earn their sixth medal of the Olympic women's football tournament.

Trump mocked the USWNT throughout the Olympic tournament, blaming their poor run of form on "wokeism". His son also joined in on the criticism.

It was a disappointing tournament for the US, who had been looking to bounce back from a quarter-final exit at Rio 2016.

They were comfortably beaten 3-0 by Sweden in their opening match at Tokyo 2020, before making amends with a victory over New Zealand and a draw over Australia. The US then edged past the Netherlands on penalties in the quarter-finals, but their dream of a gold medal ended when they lost 1-0 to Canada in the semi-finals.

Canada and Sweden will now contest the gold-medal match tomorrow. The game was moved from 11:00 local time to 21:00 (13:00 BST) on request of both teams, who were concerned about playing in extremely high temperatures and humidity.