2012 London Summer Olympics football tournament

[frederic38]

a nigerian (Henry Chinonso) died today in a match in rumanian second division
that's an example of a player that was brought in europe by a "representative" in similar conditions that i mentionned
some other examples are apoula edel when he played in armenia (he then turned his back on his corrupt representative and his representative revealed that apoula edel wasn't his real name and that he was 29, not 23 years old)
as you saw in another thread, there are even some of them in the chinese league

 

[frederic38]

cameroon's female goalkeper is no longer part of the team as she decided to stay in england and try to turn professional in europe :thumbdown:
http://www.nairaland.com/1005807/cameroons-reserve-goal-keeper-drusilla

 

[Matra2]

Poor officiating in the USA v Canada women's semi-final probably cost the Canadians the match. It was 3-2 to Canada when the ref gave a questionable indirect free kick to the US inside the Canadian box due to their goalie allegedly holding on to the ball for too long before kicking off. During the aftermath of the free kick a Canadian player accidentally handled the ball whilst reactively protecting herself - it was hit hard towards her chest area - and the ref called a penalty, which was converted. The Canadians are claiming referee bias, or worse (ie match fixing) but, of course, that would never happen at an IOC event where Pierre de Coubertin's spirit lives on.:icon_wink:

 

[Europe]

Poor officiating in the USA v Canada women's semi-final probably cost the Canadians the match. It was 3-2 to Canada when the ref gave a questionable indirect free kick to the US inside the Canadian box due to their goalie allegedly holding on to the ball for too long before kicking off. During the aftermath of the free kick a Canadian player accidentally handled the ball whilst reactively protecting herself - it was hit hard towards her chest area - and the ref called a penalty, which was converted. The Canadians are claiming referee bias, or worse (ie match fixing) but, of course, that would never happen at an IOC event where Pierre de Coubertin's spirit lives on.:icon_wink:

I heard one commentator say that the delay is called in the BPL sometimes. I don't know if they award the indirect free kick or just give a yellow card.

One of the worst calls I have seen was in a Champions League knockout game where Van Persie took a shot, but the ref had earlier blown the whistle so he got a yellow card for delay. That was his 2nd yellow. Why would you give a red to a guy and change the game on something as meaningless as that? He had no reason to delay from what I remember.

 

[frederic38]

mexico beat japan and brazil beat south korea so the final will be brazil-mexico

neymar, suposedly better than messi according to pele :icon_rolleyes: is having a hard time because leandro damiao is obviously better than him (he is the top scorer of the competition)

the other over-rated brazilian player ganso no longer plays because the white player oscar is a lot better than him

that's not a really exciting final from our point of view but remember that it's just a youth tournament, nothing more, despite being at the olympic games
if you consider it like a youth tournament, what belarus did is really impressive, and the relatively good results of the african teams (not very good thought because there were no african teams in semi final and the best african team, senegal, showed clownish defending against mexico) especially compared with spain and uruguay, are not that impressive

regarding youth tournaments and african teams, the coaches in africa no longer look at the birthdate of the african player because it's always a fake birthdate to appear younger than they really are
they use the term "real age" and look at the physical developpment of the player (height, weight)

 

[Giles Daldanus]

uruguay if i'm not mistaken didn't qualify for any olympic games, except when olympic games were the world cup (1924 and 1928) so what was a more significant stat is that uruguay didn't lose any world cup match from 1924 to 1950, winning 4 world cups in the process, 3 of them in a row

since the olympic games started to be a youth tournament, uruguay started to have trouble because they are a small country, but since they didn't even qualify they still were unbeaten at the olympic games
as an example djibouti never lost any world cup match

Thanks, you are right that all these aspects need to be taken into account! I remember that a while ago there was a discussion on this board regarding the number of World Cups won by Uruguay (in the thread covering South American football)…there was no consensus reached, but my understanding is that it’s not a stretch to make the argument that they have been champions of the world four times.

i just hope that belarus played 100%
it was alreaady a big victory for them yo be there

I can’t say that they were at their best….some of the Belarusian players were probably becoming a bit too complacent, as Kondratyev rarely makes changes to the first eleven and a number of footballers were virtually guaranteed to start. Khvaschinskiy should have entered the fray at some point and I would have liked to see some more of the Kornilenko – Zubovich duo. Egypt were too good, though, they also managed to give Brazil a run for their money in their opening match.

It’s a shame that Great Britain’s hopes were shattered due to the lottery of the penalty shootout, I think that they would have showed more teeth against Brazil than their Korean opponents and such a match would have become one of the tournament highlights.

Mexico possesses great offensive options (their forwards are very quick and have nice technical skills), but their defense is likely to let them down, so Brazil are a slight favourite when it comes to the final…the South Americans will also be extra motivated, as they have never won an Olympic gold (Mano Menezes can make history as coach of Brazil).

Btw, the French women did really well (it’s no small feat to defeat Sweden) and some of their players like Thiney and Bompastor could be considered world class. Tough luck for the Canadians, the referee was rather harsh, though I watched the clip posted by @Matra in the other thread (covering the 2012 London Olympics as whole) and one of their footballers was lucky not to see the red card prior to the controversial decision made by the official in the 90[SUP]th[/SUP] minute. It’s very disappointing that Kara Lang’s career was cut short rather prematurely, she could have become one of the best female footballers in history and led Canada to many titles in the sport.

Speaking of soccer and other Olympic competitions, Usain Bolt wants to play for Manchester United and expects a phone call from Sir Alex Ferguson

murara neto the goalkeeper who i mentionned when i registered to this forum a year ago plays

Gabriel is also a solid goalkeeper, Brazil’s future is bright when it comes to custodians…

the english booing the uruguayan anthem was a disgrace (i think it was because suarez was racist?

Apparently the British anthem (very similar to the English one) was also booed by the spectators (purportedly some of the Scottish people in the crowd were voicing their disapproval, a minority of Scots were opposed to the creation of a Great Britain team), but in Uruguay’s case it may have indeed had something to do with Suarez’s reputation.

also the father of a french female player (eugenie le sommer) was prevented from using a flag of brittany, a french region (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany )
regionalism is important in france and it's ridiculous that we can't show our support to our region]/quote]

I agree, there is no harm in doing that, it’s simply the case that she identifies with both France and her region, it’s not that she lacks patriotism…another interesting article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ol...s-can-opt-out-of-singing-national-anthem.html

here is a senegalese player releasing his anger on a mexican player

Shocking, the Eurosport commentator was rather vociferous in his condemnation and castigated the referee for not producing a red card…the Mexican player later retaliated with a heavy tackle and was cautioned, so he missed his country’s semi-final.

a nigerian (Henry Chinonso) died today in a match in rumanian second division

Very sad, seems as if it was due to a heart attack, reminds me of the Marc Vivien-Foe and Miklos Feher cases….football (and to an even larger extent weightlifting, boxing, etc.) could have negative health repercussions, overly rigorous training routines could exact a huge toll at times..

One of the worst calls I have seen was in a Champions League knockout game where Van Persie took a shot, but the ref had earlier blown the whistle so he got a yellow card for delay. That was his 2nd yellow. Why would you give a red to a guy and change the game on something as meaningless as that?

Agreed, that’s one of my pet peeves…I prefer the “strict but fair” referee (like Russian Valentin Ivanov: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmFZ7AlATMo) and do not like it when a seemingly lenient official suddenly singles out a player due to a minor transgression on his part and ruins the game.

 

[frederic38]

wow,what an upset, mexico beats brazil!
too bad for neymar...

the first goal was scored at the very start of the match on a mistake by manchester's black defender rafael (one of the 2 twins)
the second one on a free kick (typical for brazil)
bruno uvini should have played

 

[Matra2]

I only saw the second half. From what I saw Neymar played quite well but Oscar should wear a bag over his head for missing that header at the end.

 

[frederic38]

an article about african players and their fake birth certificates:

Nwankwo Kanu's official age is 33 but his real age is 42. Obafemi Martins is not 25 but 32. Jay-Jay Okocha was 10 years older than his "official" age throughout his career. And Taribo West, whose playing career ended only two years ago, is in his late fifties. Who says so? A stream of bloggers on some of Nigeria's most popular websites, in response to comments made after the country's timid effort in last month's Africa Cup of Nations.

It started when a former manager of a leading Nigerian club told the Lagos Guardian: "What happened in Angola is a confirmation of what has been happening in the past where most of our players falsified their age during competition. Most of the players are beyond the age they professed and this made it impossible for them to withstand the pace of teams like Zambia and Benin."

The star of Nigeria's finalists at the 2001 Under-17 competition went on to become officially the third-youngest player to appear in the senior World Cup when he started the 0-0 draw with England in 2002. But that was as good as it got for Femi Opabunmi, who by 2005 was playing part-time football in the French lower leagues.

A trawl through the blogosphere makes for intriguing reading. "A friend of mine who once played in the Nigerian league told me his real age was 34 but his football age was 21," wrote Onmonya. "You can walk into any immigration office in Nigeria today, forge documents at the nearby business centre, change your name, place of birth, date of birth, pay 7,000-10,000 naira instead of the official price of about 5,500 for an international passport and within hours you have completed the whole process." A new passport, a new person – and if you are a footballer, a younger one.
A former employee of the British embassy in Nigeria told Observer Sport that when visa applicants complained to him about having their applications rejected, he would reply: "Well don't talk to me about it, I'm dead." He would respond to their looks of puzzlement by pointing to the wall behind him, on which hung his death certificate, purchased for a small fee from a Lagos supplier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/21/nigerian-football-age-old-problem


that's why in youth competitions they are always dangerous

a current example of fake age for an african player:
http://www.castefootball.us/forums/...tios-2012-2013?p=255952&viewfull=1#post255952