The draw for the Olympic tournament took place this morning. Here are the groups:- Group A - Greece, Korea Republic, Mali, Mexico Group B - Paraguay, Japan, Ghana, Italy Group C - Argentina, Serbia and Montenegro, Tunisia, Australia Group D - Costa Rica, Morocco, Iraq, Portugal It's sort of a weak field overall (eg no Brazil, Spain, etc), but given that, it's a pretty tough draw for Italy, which was not one of the top seeds (those were Greece, Argentina, Japan and Morocco).
Italy will have a tough time with Japan and Paraguay. Portugal will have a little troublw with Iraq (yeah i actually said Iraq) Argentina vs. Tunisia will be a interesting match. And group A will be the most competitve. can't wait. _________________ GianPaolo
Now that the Euros are over, attention can turn to which overage players should be selected to the Olympic team. Prior to the tournament, rumors included Baggio (more or less squelched), Inzaghi and Ambrosini. Today, I see the head of Italy's Olympic federation is pushing for Cassano and Totti to be selected. Cassano, I can see. In fact, he wouldn't even be considered an overage player! But Totti? I guess it could be seen as an opportunity to redeem himself. I'd rather see Pirlo.
Are any of the networks even going to be showing these games during the Olympics? It is like an under 23 competition after all. The Italian national team will not have a chance to redeem itself for quite a while. It can start though with WC 2006 qualifying in September, hopefully with a new coach. But again, probably a lot of the forthcoming Italian national team matches will not be televised, at least not available on tv for most of us.
You do realize that most of our big stars won't be on the Olympic team anyway, right? Because they are over the age limit. The Olympics are really a youth competition now. Trap was not going to coach this team anyway. Oh, you think Totti will be one of the exceptions that you can pick who is over the age limit? I kind of doubt it myself. I don't think it will be a big name player.
Did I say anything about Trap? No, I'm moving on. Claudio Gentile coaches this team. The Olympic tournament allows teams to select 3 overage players - the rest of the team must be U-23. I'm wondering which overage players might get selected. Cassano is not overage, but he did not feature on the team during qualification because he and Gentile had some sort of falling out. I'd like to think Cassano has grown up and that Gentile would take this into account in his team selection. BTW, the Olympics only allows a squad of 18 players, plus something like 4 alternates that get brought in only in case of injury to one of the 18.
Oh, I guess you were confused by my saying "Now that the Euros are over, attention can turn to the Olympics". I meant OUR attention as fans, not Trap's.
Olympic never really matted to me. Any one know how italy does in the olympics in the past years? No1 really pays attension to it anyway, but it is good to know
Gentile gets to select 3 over 23 years players. Which 3 will he take? Baggio, Pippo, Totti, Pagliuca, Ambrosini -> ( he should have gone to euro 2004 over Zanetti)
All the games will be on Telemundo in the US. I think Ferrari is almost a certainty, especially since he didn't play a single minute at Euro 2004. And I think Gentile will cave into the media pressure to add Cassano. If Cassano can play for the senior side w/o causing any problems then Gentile has no reason to exclude him.
As for the question of TV coverage, supposedly Telemundo is going to be covering the men's Olympic tournament in the USA. They haven't published their schedule as yet, but I imagine, since it's a Spanish-language network, that they will cover all of the games involving Mexico, Costa Rica and Argentina and (perhaps) Paraguay. If they also cover the Italy games, I guess I'll have to order Telemundo for a couple of weeks.
Is this true? I know Telemundo is covering it, but I hadn't seen anywhere that they are showing every game? I hope you're right!
True, but not in the metropolis of Waterbury, Vermont. Anyway, I have Dish network, so it's available to me, but I'll have to order the pricey Spanish-language package to get it. For a couple of weeks, it wouldn't be too bad $$$-wise, but I wanna make sure the Italy games will be shown before I go down that road.
Yes, RAI International (available thru Dish for $9.95/month) shows all of Italy's home games and an occasional away one (if they can buy the rights cheaply enough). They also show U-21 qualifying games but not major tournaments such as the European championships or the Olympics.
Bad news Sue According to SoccerTV only one of Italy's matches will be shown in the group stages. The problem is that everyday all the matches kickoff at exactly the same time. So Telemundo are showing all of the Latin American teams. Here's the schedule:
Bummer. Not only THAT, but the one game is on August 18, which is the same day the full national team has a friendly (officially vs Iceland, if the Brazil in NY rumors are unfounded), and the telecast could be in direct conflict with that (assuming that it is even shown on RAI, which is not a given by any means). Oh, well..... at least I'll save some bucks. Thanks for the info.
Just happened to notice at www.soccertv.com that even the Italy-Paraguay game is not listed as being shown anymore. Oh, well.
Hmmmm, but it IS still listed here: http://www.nbcolympics.com/tvlistings/5021794/detail.html Who knows. ....
In fact, NBC's site also lists live coverage of the Italy-Japan game - on CNBC - on Aug 15. But who knows, that might be in 5 minute chunks of "live look-ins".
I don't think the complete schedule is on the website. If you subscribe to SoccerTV's newsletter you will get the complete Olympic schedule in full on Telemundo.
CNBC and MSNBC will be showing alot of men's games but they will most likely be only parts of the game since they are showing a ton of other stuff in the same time blocks. The only men's game on MSNBC/CNBC that will be shown in full(although they will butcher it with commercials) is the Portugal/Iraq game on MSNBC on August 12th. The reason it will be seen in full is simply that there are no other events that day. But it wouldn't surprise me if they still cut away from that match to show some garbage stories or previews of upcoming events. Telemundo, OTOH, won't be showing any commercials. I think the best bet to see all the Italy matches in the US is to hope some of the Chinese webcasts show the matches.