Olympics 2012 Soccer Tournaments

[boonebaker]

After the US Men's team failed to qualify for the Olympics I had lost most interest in the tournament, but my interest has been re-sparked by Senegal's late push to qualify. There are rumors that they will call on Papiss Cisse and Demba Ba to fill 2 of the 3 over-23 spots. These are 2 of my favorite players so I'm gonna be pumped if this happens. It'll also be pretty awesome if David Beckham gets the call for Britain, but that would mean he doesn't play in the FC Dallas-LA Galaxy I plan on going to. There could be more talent in this tournament than I initially expected depending on which over-23 players are called upon. Anyways, the group draws came out today:


GROUP A
GREAT BRITAIN
SENEGAL
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
URUGUAY

GROUP B
MEXICO
SOUTH KOREA
GABON
SWITZERLAND

GROUP C
BRAZIL
EGYPT
BELARUS
NEW ZEALAND

GROUP D
SPAIN
JAPAN
HONDURAS
MOROCCO

Its difficult to predict the outcome of the group stage and entire tournament without knowing which players will be selected as the over-23 exceptions for each squad, but I expect the following teams to survive the group stage:
Senegal
Uruguay
Mexico
Switzerland
Brazil
Egypt
Spain
Japan

That's right, I said it, Great Britain doesn't get past the group stage. I'm saying this mostly because they're gonna have a weak selection of over-23s as the best players will be in the EURO, and I'm assuming Senegal and Uruguay will take at least Cisse and Ba & Suarez and Cavani, respectively.


For the Women's tournament, I fully expect the US Women to win. The tournament structure is kinda stupid though...3 groups of 4, top 2 from each group, plus 2 best 3rd place teams advance to knockout stage. This means only 4 teams are eliminated following the group stage. Here's the draw:

GROUP E
GREAT BRITAIN
NEW ZEALAND
CAMEROON
BRAZIL

GROUP F
JAPAN
CANADA
SWEDEN
SOUTH AFRICA

GROUP G
UNITED STATES
FRANCE
COLOMBIA
SOUTH KOREA

I'm almost ashamed to know as much as I do about Women's soccer, but I see New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, and Colombia as the teams eliminated from Group Stage. Depending on how the KO draw unfolds, a USA-Japan rematch is highly likely in the Gold Medal match.

[boonebaker]

Solid start to the Olympics. The US Women dug themselves a whole, allowing 2 goals that they shouldn't have. The first was a late reaction from Solo on a good shot, but it should have been saved. The second was a disastrous failure to clear the ball by the defense. It did end up making the game much more exciting as the US had to come from behind. My girl Megan Rapinoe played like the stud that she is, grabbing 2 assists, the first goal and the one to get them the lead. Men's tourny starts tomorrow. Spain and Brazil should easily coast through to meet each other in the Gold medal match, but Uruguay is certainly gonna be gunning for them, having brought along Cavani and Suarez, giving them probably the best attacking duo in the tournament.

[boboplata2.0]

i see south korea, brazil, & spain winning their brackets. it's a toss up between uruguay & GB for me in group A.

[boonebaker]

i see south korea, brazil, & spain winning their brackets. it's a toss up between uruguay & GB for me in group A.

I admittedly know little about South Korea, but Mexico have a lot of very good young players and I'm pretty sure the Swiss team is pretty good, as well. It'll be tough for South Korea to survive that group. I think Uruguay easily wins Group A, but I'll change my pick for second to Great Britain since Senegal didn't bring the over-23's that I thought they would.

[boonebaker]

Well bobo, South Korea was able to hold Mexico to a draw, but neither team looked very good. Japan looked great against Spain, who appears to have some serious problems in the defense. Spain was lucky to only lose by a goal, Japan definitely should have had at least 3, probably should have gotten 4 or 5.

[machete]

what happened to countries like Germany, Netherlands, Argentina?

[boonebaker]

The top 2 teams from the CONMEBOL 2011 Youth Championship (Brazil beat Uruguay 6-0 in the final) and the top 3 teams from the UEFA 2011 U-21 Championship (Spain beat Switzerland 2-0, and Belarus beat Czech in the 3rd place game). The Olympic tournament is U23 with 3 over-age exceptions, so the qualifiers are based on youth tournaments. A lot of teams like Germany that have good, young players, only let them play for the senior squad. For example, Germany's Toni Kroos is 22, yet he's played 30 games with the senior team but only played 10 with the U21's.

[boonebaker]

Its only 10 minutes in but Senegal has been getting the better of Great Britain so far. I wish I hadn't switched my pick from Senegal to Great Britain. Still cheering for Senegal to come out on top though. LIONS OF TERANGA WANT GOLD!

[boonebaker]

Meanwhile Brazil is doing exactly was what expected, 25 minutes in and they're up 2-0 on Egypt.

[boboplata2.0]

Well bobo, South Korea was able to hold Mexico to a draw, but neither team looked very good. Japan looked great against Spain, who appears to have some serious problems in the defense. Spain was lucky to only lose by a goal, Japan definitely should have had at least 3, probably should have gotten 4 or 5.

LOL at spain. at least they'll have easier team to play with in honduras & morroco.

a south korea/japan finals would be legendary!