Bale, Adam and Karma?

Haha, the image of this made my day. I'm really not a fan of Bale's and my estimation of him decreased more when he pulled out of the GB squad, but if he was told he wasn't going to be fit, truly believed it himself and wasn't picked because of being told this .... i still wouldn't like him

 

newcastle told senagal they could have ba n cisse for the olympics or the african cup of nations but not both; which me being a bit selfish think that was fair

 

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

 

Olympic gold medals should be the pinnacle achievement in a sport. The fact that Bale would rather play a friendly for his club just underlines the rather obvious fact that the Olympics don't mean much at all to footballers. It shouldn't be in the Olympics, same with tennis, boxing etc. Swimmers, athletes, cyclists etc. spend four years building up to this moment, their moment in the spotlight, the chance to compete for the biggest prize in their sport, and then see 11 footballers receive the same prize and not really care about it. It devalues a gold medal to award them to footballers and tennis players in my opinion, the Olympics should be reserved for the athletes who really care about them.

 

Totally agree with that AG!

How are you doing anyway? Don't see you round these parts very often.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

If that is the case it says more about Bale than it does footballs place in the Olympics. Ask Lionel Messi or our own Fabricio Coloccini if they're proud of their Olympic medals, or the Cameroon squad that won in 2000. Or watch the Honduran celebration after beating Spain yesterday. Our players can hardly be arsed to play internationals at all, don't use them as a yardstick for the rest of the world.

 

The Olympics was supposed to be for amateur athletes, but like all things, money raised it's ugly head and changed everything.

So much so that they started using performance enhancing drugs.

 

I'm alright Obi, yourself? I post mainly on the other site but do check here from time to time.

Proud, probably. But Messi would no doubt count that as one of the least important achievements of his career, the Olympics is such a minor competition in football, many domestic leagues and cups are held in higher regard, as are the major international tournaments.

 

I don't see how Bale can say he wanted to play for Team GB, when he was in fact on the wrong side of the planet... If selected, did he really expect to fly back and still be able to give 100% on the pitch for 90 minutes? If he was making himself available, he would / should have at least been in the right continent.

 

I agree bar the boxing which has amateur roots and a long history in Olympic competition. It has been in all but one since 1904. Indeed many boxers delay a decision on turning professional to reach that goal, often at their own expense in terms of finance. Lennox Lewis was one such case, Audley Harrison another (he should have stayed amateur the big jessie).

Tennis and football are not really Olympic sports for me but if you look through history the Olympics make up has changed every year since its introduction so its maybe a bit unfair to single them out. My problem is its just a side show at times. Brazil and Argentina basically use to test their team of the future out, is that really respectful to the Olympics?

 

I don't think you can judge any olympic sports in relation to another based on perceived importance or national respect/pride. Unless one of our GB athletes won a medal in shooting or weightlifting, its not something we as a nation place in huge regard HOWEVER in Asia, shooting is huge, in Eastern Europe weightlifting is huge. Their athletes are superstars!

Similarly I don't think we can judge Argentina or Brazil for wanting to 'bed in' their youngsters, in fact, I applaud it. At the end of the day, the Olympics is about the best available athletes competing against each other to decide who is the best in the world in that particular competition. Just looking at the Brazil squad is like reading someone's football manager line up when they're using cheats - its ****ing unreal....The best available athletes, without a doubt!

I've got tickets for the QF and I'm hoping they win their group so I can see the potential World Cup winners play together! Also, in fairness to the Spanish their squad is good and some of their players (Muniain in particular) played really well, they just had no luck!

 

But its not really the best available athletes as far as football goes. If that was the case there would be no age restriction. It just feels like its all a bit half cocked to me.

 

Do they have competitions which eclipse the Olympics in terms of importance though? Athletics, cycling and swimming all have world championship which their top stars take seriously, but the main event is the Olympics, I assume it's the same for weightlifting and shooting? The World Cup in football is far more important than the Olympics, as are the four slams in tennis. In my opinion an Olympic gold medal should be the biggest prize available to the sportsmen who compete at the games, not a footnote on someone's Wikipedia.

 

The Olympic squad was selected on July 2nd.
Bale flew out to the US on July 21st.
He already knew that he hadn't been selected for nearly 3 weeks.

 

But he wasn't selected because he was injured and Tottenham said he would definitely miss the Newcastle match.

 

Spurs didn't say that he was injured at all.
His scans were sent to Team GB and Pearce decided not to select him, based upon his fitness level at the time.

 

Is that why Blatter was talking about him being banned, Tottenham said he would miss the Newcastle game, I remember hearing because I was thinking we wouldn't have to face him.

 

Blatter was talking out of his arse, as usual, and was told as much by the chairman of the British Olympic Association and their Chef de Mission.
Speculation may have suggested that Bale would miss the opening game, but nothing official said that.

 

Thought Villas-Boas had confirmed it.