Olympic Review: Football

Olympic Review: Football

by Matthew 

Where Badminton was my favourite design, I'm afraid Football (designed by Neil Wolfson) is my least favourite. Explaining the offside rule (incompletely I must pedantically add) has become quite a clichéd and tired joke that doesn't embody the essence or spirit of the sport, whereas many of the other sports' designs do. I would have chosen something that shows why people love the sport, something exciting and dynamic such as a bicycle kick goal. Something like this:

Now doesn't that just look better? :)

As far as the Olympic results go, the story for Team GB was about the same for both the Men's and the Women's teams. They both topped their group before losing in the first round of the knock-out stage.

On the Men's side, they drew in their first game against Senegal, a country not widely known for their footballing prowess, but surprising many by finishing second in the group after beating Uruguay. Team GB won their next two matches against United Arab Emirates and Uruguay to give them the 7 points needed to top the group.

In the knock-out stage, they faced up against South Korea, who held us to a 1-1 draw all the way through to penalties. And you know what we're like at penalties! The first 4 penalties for each side all went in, and on Team GB's fifth penalty poor Daniel Sturridge had his shot saved by the goal keeper. The Koreans managed to get their shot in and it was all over for Team GB.

The Women's side started off even better than their male counterparts, winning all three of their group stage matches against New Zealand, Cameroon and Brazil no less! This took them searing through to the knock-out stages looking poised to get into the semis or even the final.

Their first match would be against Canada, who had finished third in their group (since there were only three groups, two third-place teams went through to the knock-out stage to even the numbers up). This looked like a walk in the park for Team GB, but unfortunately it was not to be so. Canada got an early goal and after going 2-0 up inside 30 minutes, it was a tough uphill struggle for a deflated Team GB, who were never able to come back from that score.

Overall, I would say it was a valiant effort from both teams, just a little unlucky.