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

Geez, how early does the Olympic camp begin? Surely it doesn't overlap the WC qualifiers(?)

 

I'm surprised the US would actually want to call up any of these players that failed to make their mark on a youth event anyway!!

Not surpried by whitecloud's comments though saying Olympics is lame, always comments from nation not being represented.

 

We had a large number of quality players that didn't get released for Olympic qualifying, and some of those players have key roles on the senior team. That is also how you know that the Olympics isn't worth following. If it were worth following FIFA would have guaranteed that players were available for qualifying. They didn't and the U.S. didn't have even close to its best U-23 team. If FIFA doesn't care about making sure there are quality teams why should I care about following the tournament?

 

But you've obviously followed the tournament qualifying but have turned your head away now that your team won't be there.

The rules are the same for everyone, some FA's just work better with their clubs to get players released, of course hard for players playing abroad.

But look at it this way. Olympics is more of a development competition, players already playing senior international football are obviously past this stage and for me would be pointless for an American team to force the issue of player release at this age. Other nations, such as Oman for example have taken the route of making sure senior players have been made available, the FA works closely with the league and clubs to the detriment of the league at times, but for a nation like Oman they need to have their very best players showing up, for a nation like US who can make world cups then Olympics are more of a development role to see what the next set of players could bring, if they can makethe grade or not.

 

exactly using the "we couldnt get our best players released" isnt a good enough excuse. if anything just look at what druryfire said. it speaks more to your lack of depth and the quality of your domestic league. thats the way all these tournaments are at the lower levels typically its a showcase for players who 1) play domestically and 2) havent made it to the first team.

as for the clubs they will have to release the players and they know that. fifa i think is being more than generous about not having kids play in both the euro championships and olympics.

 

My country's represented, but I still think the tournament's a crock of shite.

 

Crock of shite but you just can't stay away. So you still follow it but still call it shite, any reason why? We wouldn't want it to be as good as the world cup now would we.

 

Its not even as good as the U-20 World Cup, it might even be a lesser tournament than sub-regional events like the Caribbean Cup and the Tiger Cup. Its not even a well done tournament by the standards of the other youth tournaments. FIFA doesn't really care about ensuring quality participation. They make no room for it on the events calendar. They don't promote it in any way. It isn't especially an important sport in terms of the Games themselves. The Olympic games themselves might spend more time promoting badminton then they do the men's football tournament. It is a strong candidate to go the way of baseball/softball and be dropped from future Olympics. It takes up financial resources in Olympics preparation and infrastructure that isn't justified by their importance to the Games. The World Cup is bigger than the Olympics, there is no reason for football to be played there.

 

Actually the football tournament is usually about the easiest to stage and must use least financial resources, as they don't have to build/adapt venues to host the games.

While interest in the tournament is low in the UK, it'd be daft to extrapolate that interest worldwide.

 

16 teams qualify, one directly. We have 16 of the best U23 teams represented, so if your not their, then the games aren't really missing you. 16 sides surely must have the best quality, unless you think some scrapped through?

What the games do that they shouldn't is suddenly chnage the competition into a U23 + 3 overage, why? This suddenly chages the whole poitn of qualfiying at U23 to begin with. Having 3 overage players suddenly takes the dreams away of some lads who actually qualified. The teams for me that stick to U23 squad rather than bring in ringers are the ones who play to the spirit of the games. The others are just about glory.

Olympics for me is for fun and to build your next squad for future senior competitions, not a cheap way of getting a medal.

 

10 votes for usa?? lolololololol Posters here aren't too smart.

And look at the sour grapes by whitecloud. If his team made it, he'd be all "This is the greatest tournament evar!!". But since they couldn't advance out of the OQ group stage at home (a very weak group too), now he's all "this tourney is shite". He probably voted for usa in the poll.

The Olympics won't interfere with CONCACAF WCQ. So your info is wrong there, whitecloud. And NO country is able to get all their best U-23 players. You think usa is the only one? LOL. And it's not FIFA's job to promote this, this the the OLYMPICS. WTH. It's the IOC's event. People who say "I'm kinda glad my team lost" are flat out liars. Especially when their "reason" for being kinda glad is false. No true fan is "kinda glad" if his team fails to qualify out of a confederation as easy as CONCACAF (and not even make it to semifinals).

It's tougher to win Olympic gold than the U-20 WC. You face tougher teams. It is far more prestigious than the Caribbean Cup or Tiger Cup. And there is no chance in hell that it will go away like baseball or softball. Football at the Olympics will always exist.

Why do ignorant posts always come from a certain fanbase?...

Anyway, the Olympics is a good youth tournament. We get to see the best U-23 side. Good football will be played. If your team failed to qualify out of an easy confederation, then your team is simply not good.

Brasil will be dangerous. They will bring a strong side. Look out for them.

 

A sincere lack of respect for the game. I don't know how you can comment when you can't even get the name of the Tiger Cup right! You can comment how crap the Olympics tournament is when you actually learn what type of teams will be playing first. Don't give me crap teams etc untill you actually respect what is happening in football outside of America and the EPL.

 

hmm...if the world cup had 16 entrants based on the same qualifying process, I think a few might suggest the field isn't anywhere near as strong as it could be.

 

You can go look up my posting history, I was saying the Olympics were garbage 6 months ago, not only after the U.S. lost.

And druryfire I have plenty of respect for the ASEAN championship, I have none for men's football at the Olympics. It is a substandard tournament that really shouldn't even be an Olympic sport.

 

Actually the opposite is true. There are more teams in the U-20 tournament, and a higher share of teams are from UEFA and CONMEBOL.

 

Hmm, if the WC had 16 entrants then it would have the best teams from each region. As it stands now, more teams = more likely to have more crap teams. And these more teams just come from Europe anyway, the best teams have already qualified from Europe, so why would we need a handful of others?

16 teams in a World Cup woul show us that some European nations that we all think are strong aren't as strong as they actually are. Italy, France, England would struggle to make it.

 

If it wasn't an Olympic sport, we would only then have a world u23 cup, calls would then be telling them to play it in the Olympics.

 

So which is it?

 

Which would be better than the current crock of shite, with its overage players and "affirmative action" allocations for crap confederations like Asia.

 

That's good logic if you assume the regions are roughly equal in ability, so having the proportions used from each means you have roughly the 16 best nations.

That's blatantly nonsense, sadly.

It's also, if you look at the "qualification" process, a bit of a stretch to say the teams there are the best from each region.

 

The problem with this argument is that you assume the best teams would have the best records in qualifying. That there can't be an upset in qualifying or that a top team could get drawn into a difficult group.

By allowing 13 UEFA teams in the World Cup, it means a top team can have a minor slip-up in qualifying and still make the party. There is also an option to qualify if you don't win your group, should you be unlucky to draw Spain or Germany in qualifying group. For e.g. France struggled a bit in qualifying for WC 2006, yet were one of the top teams of that final tournament (they weren't one of the top 4 teams if you go by UEFA qualifying). Ditto for Brazil in 2002 and Uruguay in 2010. Both far better teams than, say, USA or South Korea who qualify every time thanks to a higher than deserved number of allocation spots in other confederations.

 

Why is Asia a crap confederation?

Japan, Australia and South Korea can certainly mix it with the best of the world, club football is changing due to a confederation that is seen acting to improve the game for all members, not just for the top nations in their own backyard.

Crock of shite once again, depends who you are and depends what your looking for. Don't worry, Euro's can give you your fill for the Summer, then after that, why not discover the other part of the beautiful game?

 

The problem being with a bigger allocation of teams, you open up the fact that a team can win the ultimate prize by stumbling their way through. Now, if it was a two yearly world cup, then I would accept smaller for teams that have deserved to get their by winning and not stumbling across the line.

For a four yearly world cup that we have, yes we need 32 to represent the world, theirs just too many countries to keep too many out on a four year cycle.

As for the argument of Brazil v USA for example, and the easier qualfication routes, well, I would actually be open to regionalised qualficiaiton rounds at the early stages and then unite the whole world into qualfication groups at later dates when it gets serious. Would love to see England drawn away to Cameroon for a qualfication match for example or a Brazil drawn away to Albania. With the world we have now, I don't think there's much excuse not to open up qualification.

 

We get to see the best U23 side, although I tend to think Olympics don't really represent the Under 23 spirit when a few ringers can be introduced - for the sake of what exactly? It's a pity the London Olympics didn't force it to be kept at U23 which would then probably be set in stone as the next nations wouldn't want to be the ones to increase the ringers again.

 

It all depends how you define "stumble their way through". It can easily be argued IMO that finishing 4th in AFC qualifying involves more "stumbling" than, say, finishing 2nd in a UEFA group and needing a playoff to go through to the WC finals. Especially when you look at some of the groups (e.g. France and Spain together in 1 group).