London 2012: Men's Olympic Football Tournament [R for ALL results]

You could say the same thing for every nation. When have we ever seen a top under 23 team going into a tournament? Never. And the p!ss take is, you qualify as U23 and end up being a totally different unit with the overgae lads.

You'd have to say that if you are a betting man, Uruguay and probably Mexico look excellent value for at least an each way bet. You can get 9/1 and 16/1 respectively at unsuspecting UK bookmakers.

this. which is why they shouldnt allow overage players in the future.

Agree, but historically (for the last 30 years or so) there are just a few 'top teams' at the Olympics: Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, Spain and maybe Italy. From those countries only Brasil and Spain are actually playing. Mexico (they just won Toulon) and Switzerland have some great youth.

African and CONMEBOL teams are usually very strong at this tournament and UK is the host nation with lots of talent across the board.

Puertorico stated that this group is the easiest... but in truth on paper itby far looks like the toughest. Group C has two clear favourites: Brasil and Egypt; Group D has Spain and a fight for second place, while group B is interesting, but none of the teams looks like 1/2 final material.

Meanwhile group A has UK, which could well win the whole thing, Uruguay with CONMEBOL usually strong at the tournament and Senegal who squadwise look like the best African side with Papiss Cisse and Dame Ndoye apparently planning to play at the Olympics. Even UAE during qualifying looked like the strongest Asian team.

BTW: Why is USA in the poll?

I think the poll actually started during qualification. It seems the counter has been reset but the nations in the previous poll are still there.

In CONMEBOL's case it wasn't even a U-23 team, Brazil and Uruguay qualified through a U-20 tournament.

And Uefa used the Under 21 Tournament. It's all a bit slapdash.

Looking on the bright side my tickets turned up this week.

you lost me there, the only way UK could come close to win this is by bringing bale, phil jones, martin kelley, walcott, henderson, chamberlain, carroll, welbeck, wilshire, cleverly, richards, smalling, kyle walker, rodwell, sturrigde, and bringing rooney, joe hart and ashley young as the over age players.. and still it would be a long shot


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Uruguay has two world cups only three countries have more than them, to say they are not a top team is the ridiculous part. Their history in south america is better than any other country winning more copa america than brasil and argentina. So to say they are not a top team is stupid and just plain dumb. Look at uruguay U23 roster they have some big time players.


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1. Ancient history.
2. This isn't the World Cup. This is the Olympics. At the Olympics Nigeria is a big team. Which it clearly isn't at the World Cup.
3. They have a good run since 2010 at senior level. Doesn't mean jack for their U23 chances. They haven't even qualified for the Olympics since 1928...
4. Even the bookies have team GB as third favourite to win the whole thing.

THEY ARE NOT A BIG TEAM. They are a dark horse. Saying anything else is delusional.

They may do well, but given them the status of favourite is laughable. The favourites for this tournament (and only big teams) are: Spain, Brasil and UK. Mexico, Switzerland, South Korea, some African team (in my opinion with Senegal being the likeliest choice) and Uruguay are dark horses.

[personal attack deleted by mod] The senior football team logic doesn't mean zilch at the Olympics.

double

These arguments are completely ridiculous.

As you said so, these are Olympics, and as you should know the base for each team is made up with players of under 23. No team here has the slightest posibility to cap more than 3 players that already played in a former Olympic tournament, so none of the nations past history in the Olympics, comes of importance in order to state it as being a favourite for the tournament.

The only past history that helps you to decide if they are favourites or not, it is their performance within their Confederational qualifiers, if they played among each other. If they didn`t do so, you don`t have anything to compare them with.

The other thing that can give you a clue, is their results in other under age tournaments, if the time range between their past performance in the under age tournament with the year of these Olympics, allow their players to cap in them as they grew older, but be aware that not always a player that was brilliant in under age tournaments, ends being equally as brilliant in his older age.

However, if you want to establish favourites taking in mind, past Olympic performances, then puertorricane is correct, and you are wrong : Uruguay`s ancient 2 gold medals, have exactly the same weight as the one that Argentina (who is not participating now) got in Beijing 2008 and Athens 2004. In fact the only participating team in the actual 2012 Olympics, that has more gold than Uruguay, it is the UK who has 3 gold medals in their past history (btw, all of it, much older than the ones Uruguay won). Your so called "favourites", with the exception of Spain, who won it once (1992), Brazil, Switzerland, Mexico and South Korea, have never won the Olympic gold, these last two have never won a single medal at all.

Stating that they are ridiculous is the only ridiculous thing I see.
The stupidest thing is that your analysis basically backed up everything I was saying, but in some whacked up way you came to different conclusions

To some extent I agree, but whenever you see a U17 or U20 tournament you just know that Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Nigeria and Ghana will do well. Why? Because in regards to raw talent, size of the talent pool, physical superiority and/or schooling system they are way above the rest (before the MRI era Nigeria and Ghana seemed to do well because of age cheating, but the last few years seem to have killed that notion)

The same as above applies for the Olympics - the players are more or less refined products, but they are still raw. Due to this Argentina, Brasil, Spain and Nigeria (or African teams in general) have dominated this competition is the past 20 something years.

Agreed. But all you write basically expands on what I already wrote and more or less shows why Uruguay isn't an Olympic favourite.

Dude... a gold is a gold. But the Argentinian golds say a about the current state of Argentinian football development, but the Uruguayan ones say nothing about the current state of Uruguay youth football...

Really? We are going to use ancient history to decide 'favourites'? Please... Uruguay last qualified in 1928...

There are three key issues to take into account when deciding who is a favourite:
a) Modern-day performance of teams at the Olympics tournament (of those starting only Brasil, Spain and to a lesser extent Mexico have performed). Optionally we can use confederation performance - that strongly favours CAF and CONMEBOL (albeit apart from Brasil and Argentina the confeds performance is cagey).
b) Team analysis - looking at the players involved Brasil, Great Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Mexico and to a lesser extent Senegal and Uruguay have the strongest squads.
c) Recent U23 team results and CONFED qualification. This is of limited use as a lot of the teams will differ a lot from what will actually make it to the Olympics. Nonetheless Mexico proved a strong contender during qualification and at Toulon, while Egypt, Morocco and Belarus gave a poor showing at Toulon. Uruguay played with a U20 squad and the squad for the Olympics will differ drastically.

All in all the initial two statements:
a) Uruguay is a top team
b) Group A is an easy draw
were incorrect.

On the contrary I never backed up, what you said before. You are the one who says so, trying to absurdly justify your initial ridiculous statements, with what I said afterwards.
You stated these 4 statements, in order to not consider Uruguay as a favourite :

Well my friend, historic performances as you sure must know, tends to repeat itself from time to time, so it being ancient history (point 1), isn`t something not to take in mind for considering any nation as a potential candidate to win it. The same as above, you can consider Nigeria a big team (point 2), only on its past performances, (so if you don`t want to consider Uruguay`s past history, you shouldn`t consider Nigeria`s past history either), but for its present status, it means only peanuts, and my point here is that with these two points, you are contradicting yourself.
In relation to point 3, at first you made a good point, but afterwards you spoiled it with your last sentence, as most CONMEBOL countries didn`t give such a big deal to Olympic football, once the WC was created in 1930, and in many Olympics (before 1960), there weren`t any a CONMEBOL qualifier at all, to decide who went and some Olympic games didn`t even have one team from the Confederation (1948-1956). Therefore a big gap of years passed by, since 1928 till 1960, when CONMEBOL qualifiers started for one of the 2 spots given to Conmebol for Olympics. (always hard to make it through, considering that all time favourite Brazil plays there).
And the most ridiculous of all your points, it`s point 4 : bookies always over rate UK teams, but that doesn`t mean anything. Probably it is because most gamblers are from back there, and most of them have a very big crush on their team and bet on it, which incides lowering its odds of winning the whole thing .

Don`t change the issues, historic achievements don`t have nothing to relate itself with current state. Besides Argentina isn`t playing in 2012 Olympics, as they were eliminated precisely by Uruguay. If they`d be here, instead of Uruguay, wouldn`t you consider them as favourites ?.
be a little bit honest to yourself.

Maybe, but I don`t understand you when you say "cagey" on other Conmebol teams performance, as Paraguay won the silver medal in 2004, and we (Chile) won the Bronze medal in 2000, being it Conmebol's best performance that year. Fact is that of only 2 participating Conmebol teams in modern- day Olympics, most of the times, both end up in the best places. So just by being a Conmebol nation, with this argumentative reason, gives the nation a "favourite" condition. While CAF has 5 teams in the Olympics, and with luck only one team makes it. I don`t see much similarity between both Confederations.

Mexico won the Toulon youth with an u23 team, while most of its european competition were u21. It`s a pointless comparisson. Besides, this year no Conmebol team played there, which downgraded the tournament, as most times, Conmebol teams end at top places there.

Only somebody from england will say Uruguay is not a top team but say GB is...lolol lets see when the olympics come around i'll bet anything Uruguay beats GB and handily. Especially if beckham is one of the over age players because that's a waste of a spot.

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ROTFL. Just ridiculous. No need to comment because your comment collapses on itself.

In the past 20 years Nigeria has won the Olympic gold in 1996 and the Olympic silver in 2008. Uruguay last qualified in 1928... It's a totally different ball game.

While looking at the Olympics only the history of the past 20-30 years means something to a teams chances, because he says something about the current state of football in the country.

So... they still haven't qualified since 1928 and teams like Paraguay, Colombia and Chile have.

I'll put it this way: At the Olympics bookies overrate all 'traditional top footballing nations' or in the case of Uruguay 'teams which are on the up' and treat the Olympics teams as if they were the senior sides... and given the history of the Olympics in the last 20-30 years there must have been some great deals to be made.

Hence Uruguay, Switzerland and UK are overrated at the bookies...

In response to my supposedly ridiculous comments I get 2 very ridiculous counterarguments (point 1 and 2), 1 moot point (point 3) and 1 point which has some credence (point 4). ROTFL.

Haha. And Nigeria got eliminated by Morocco and Senegal. That doesn't mean that Morocco and Senegal are favourites in place of Nigeria... And the fact that Gabon is the African U23 champion doesn't mean they are Africa's top contender (Senegal is in my book).

If it were Nigeria and Argentina they would be favourites. Their replacements have to prove themselves first. Uruguay and Senegal / Gabon are dark horses solely due to the confederations they come from. Egypt may have a good run, but solely due to the very weak competition for second place (New Zealand and Belarus)

ROTFL. At least check your facts
1. CAF has 3,5 teams.
2. 2008 - all 3 teams make it out of group (Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria meet in 1/4 final, while Cameroon play Brasil). SILVER MEDAL (going toe to toe with Messi's Argentina).
3. 2004 - CAF's worst showing in last 5 Olympics, but from Subsaharan Africa 1 out of 2 teams make it out of group (and Ghana missing out on goal difference and beating Paraguay in the group stages).
4. 2000 - 2 out of 3 Subsaharan countries make it out of the group (with non-progressing South Africa pummeling Brasil in the group stage). GOLD MEDAL.
5. 1998 - 100% of Subsaharan countries make it out of group. GOLD MEDAL.
6. 1994 - Ghana, sole Subsaharan country at the tournament makes it of of group. BRONZE MEDAL.
7. Putting Africa's 2 golds, 1 bronze and 1 silver in the last 5 olympics on the shoulders of luck is a pretty pathetic argument.

NOTE: When I speak of CAF performance I limit it solely to Subsaharan Africa, as North Africa is pathetic at these tournaments and I don't treat them as part of the argument. In something like 10 attempts they have not made it out of the group and the only reason they make it to the olympics is because North African countries know how to play Subsaharan African teams.

Again - some fact-checking would be in order.
1. CONMEBOL has won 2 out of the last 10 tournaments and 12 out of all 39 Toulon tournaments... Define MOST TIMES
2. Egypt, Belarus, Japan and Morocco played with their U23 teams, so Mexico won in a tournament which features 5 of the 16 Olympic teams. Plus they have an easier group than - I dunno - Uruguay. Ergo - they look like contenders for a good run.

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My prognosis:
Group A: 1. GB 2. Senegal
Group B: 1. Mexico 2. South Korea
Group C: 1. Brazil 2. Egypt
Group D: 1. Spain 2. Japan

1/4 final:
GB vs South Korea --> GB
Senegal vs Mexico --> Senegal
Brazil vs Japan --> Brazil
Spain vs Egypt --> Spain

1/2 final:
Brazil vs GB --> Brazil
Spain vs Senegal --> Spain

final:
Brazil vs Spain - who know

This is what it should all come down to. If people think Uruguay are gonna suck, then why don't they put their money where their mouth is? You can't make a prediction without backing it up. In this forum, if you predict, you gotta back it up with a sig, avi or forum departure bet. Only a wussy would be afraid to bet.

No one said they were gonna suck. The obvious was stated, that GB are group favourites and if anything this is the TOUGHEST group, not the easiest.

GREAT BRITAIN FACTS:
1. Clubs will be obliged to release players for the British U23 team
2. Ryan Giggs knows this is his only shot at an international trophy.

That means a team with:
U23: Gibbs, Bale, Ramsey, Cleverley, Smalling, Sinclair, Wilshere, Sturridge, Bertrand, Richards, Evans, McEachran, Oxford-Chamberlain, Henderson, Carroll, Hutchinson and Wellbeck
O23: Giggs, Joe Cole, Beckham (may not make the cut, as the coach is unimpressed) or Bellamy.

Honestly - how can the above team not be a tournament favourite?

Are you guys delusional or what?

puertoricane offered you a bet. Are you gonna take it or what?

Puertoricane es el mismo mae k pensaba k Estados Unidos iba clasificar facilmente.. k boricua mas torpe.. El habla solo para hablar.

I don't bet money. Besides - it's several months away...

You don't have to bet money. Bet forum departure. The loser of the bet would have to leave the forum for 6 months.

What the hell kind off stupid bet is that? What are you guys? 12?