The Strange Relationship between Football and the Olympics…
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- The Olympics is the pinnacle of sporting excellence for athletes competing in numerous sports, training for years just to be in with a chance of securing a medal, and one of the most watched competitions.
Yet, to the world of football the title of Olympic gold seemingly doesn’t carry the same weight. But why is this?
#football #olympics #footballhistory
Quick side note on Messi playing: Guardiola played in Barcelona 1992 when Spain won gold and loved the competition. I love the Olympic football because it's the last U competition so it's like a graduation for young players who will become stars. Look at that Argentina team in 2008, Senegal 2012, Germany 2014, Japan 2020, Morocco 2024. All those players are now in the senior team and some of them are household names. London 2012 especially when it was the first time the world saw Neymar, Aubameyang, Salah, Son, and Mane play.
Major commercial sports such as football, rugby, tennis and basketball, should not be in the Olympics. They already have their own international tournaments and are huge sports in their own rights.
Soccer should be out of the Olympics and replaced with Futsal.
Rugby Union reentered the Olympics via its stripped down, festival derivative Rugby7s. Which is a boost to '7s prestige, and exposes Rugby Union to the world in a format that is much easier for non-rugby nations to adopt and progress at.
Cricket's Olympic return will see a similar situation with the chosen format being "Twenty20" Cricket. A spectator friendly, much faster version of the sport, while the pinnacle of the sport remains Test Cricket (which can't fit the Olympic schedule.
American Football's Olympic debut in LA'28 will be in the form of Flag Football.
Like Rugby7s, both T20 Cricket and Flag Football offer a much larger pool of competition compared to the number of countries who are competitive in the top level format of their sport.
*Basketball has its own battle between the Olympics and the FIBA World Cup. FIBA has long tried to raise the status of their World Cup but the cultural phenomenon that was the Dream Team happened under the Olympics. Olympic Gold is as prestigious (if not slightly more) than being World Champions. Any change to Olympic Basketball will come down to the attitudes and perceptions the NBA and the North American basketball viewing public have in regards to international representative Basketball and specifically the FIBA World Cup
Definitely agree with the futsal suggestion!
Biafra