Football - Why do the favourites always loose in the Olympics?

The sport of Football is one of the traditional Olympic sports having been on the Olympic programme since the 1900 Paris games and has since then only been of the programme once in the 1932 Los Angeles games. The Women's competition was introduced in the 1996 Atlanta games earning the Women's sport alot of recognition. As Football is the biggest sport on the planet I'm assuming that there isn't any need for explaination of how the game is played. In London the tournament will start with a group stage where teams are split into groups dependent on rankings (four groups for the men and three groups for the women). The best eight teams from the group rounds move on to the quarter-finals where the knock-out stage begins. 

In the last couple of games there has been several suprising results in the Men's competition like Nigerias silver finish at the 2008 Beijing games. Iraqs fouth place finish at the 2004 Athens games or Cameroons win at the 2000 Sydney games. It also always seems that the worlds best teams when it comes to rankings and the world championships have a hard time actually producing the goods when the Olympic games come around. The favourites this year in my mind are Great Britain, they have the home field advantage with crowds that are going to go wild once they step out on the field. This however puts alot of pressure on the players to produce outstanding resultts and if the group rounds don't start off to good I think they could be in trouble. Other favourites are Brazil, Spain and Mexico, but you never know who will shock us this year. The last three games there have been some interesting results and I think we're going to see at least one suprise team on the podium.

In the Women's competition the out-right favourites to win are the USA, this team has been in every olympic final only loosing once in the 2000 Syndey games when Norway took the title from them. Since then they have won two more Olympic golds with Brazil in second place and Germany taking bronze, but as Germany failed to qualify we will not see this podium a third time. Outside favourites include Sweden and Japan who have placed fourth in the past and are looking for their first Olympic medal in the sport. My prediction is that USA will take the gold medal and that any of the other teams have the capability to take the other medals, but it will all depend on who faces who in the knock-out.

With the possibility of suprising results and dramatic play the Football at the Olympics is always entertaining to watch and with crowds that are certifiably Football-crazy the atmosphere will be incredible and I can't wait to watch.