With the greatest sporting festival in the World now less than 100 days away, those who speculated on buying tickets for the Olympic Football tournament now finally know who they will be watching when the competition begins on Wednesday 25^th July.

Apart from the novelty act of a Great Britain side and the chance to see Brazil and Spain there isn’t a great deal to get excited about. The other European representatives are the footballing powerhouses of Belarus and Switzerland, whilst double gold medallists Argentina are missing, Uruguay being the second South American representative.

The lack of a real box office draw will make the task of selling tickets even more difficult than it already has been. Football is the only sport in the entire Olympic Games which hasn’t sold out, and with the fixtures now released there are going to be some particularly hard sells.

The Team GB games could all go, particularly as all three of their games are part of a double header with the remaining Group A teams. Two matches for the price of one may well tempt fans to the matches, particularly once Stuart Pearce names his 18 man squad.

Brazil visit Cardiff (v Egypt, 26/7), Old Trafford (v Belarus 29/7) and Newcastle (v New Zealand 1/8) whilst Spain are at Hampden Park (v Japan, 26/7), St James Park (v Honduras 29/7) and Old Trafford (v Morocco, 1/8).

The hard sell comes for the remaining games. Those in the Midlands who may have fancied a trip to the Ricoh Arena have slim pickings to watch. Belarus v New Zealand is the opening fixture in Coventry and it doesn’t get much better after that, with the double header on 1^st August featuring Japan v Honduras and Senegal v UAE probably the pick.

After applying for tickets for a host of events in the initial ballot, all I received was tickets for one of the games at Wembley, so in the third round of sales I went for the first day at Old Trafford and have been rewarded with GB’s opening game against Senegal as part of a double header with Uruguay v UAE as the hors d’ouerve.

That match may well see a full house, but I can categorically guarantee that the match I go to at Wembley will not be watched by a capacity crowd and it’s here that the madness of allocating the largest venues to matches that don’t feature the top seeds comes home to roost.

On the 1^st August, the game scheduled to be held at Wembley was between the sides allocated positions 2 and 3 of Group B. That already meant that it wouldn’t be GB, Mexico, Brazil or Spain. The marketing men’s hearts must have shrunk when it became clear that the biggest stadium in Britain would be hosting Gabon v South Korea, a match that would struggle to fill Wimbledon never mind Wembley!

Either of those sides could be GB’s quarter final opponents should things go to plan for Stuart Pearce’s team, with Brazil a potential semi-final foe. If there is still home interest at that stage, then the attendances may rise. If not then empty seats may be the biggest contribution of the most popular sport in the world to London 2012.

The Socceroos beat the Gulf nation 1-0 in Doha on Tuesday thanks to a long-range effort from Mile Jedinak, but it was a number of clutch saves from the Fulham custodian at the other end which kept Bahrain scoreless and propelled Australia to the top of Group C.

“We know the quality that Mark has to offer to the team and I’m happy to have him there,” Osieck said.

“He had an excellent performance and made some good saves, especially in the second half.”

“He kept us in the game and we must give him credit.”

Australia remain undefeated in the tournament after a 4-0 win over India and a battling 1-1 draw with South Korea earlier in the group stage, and Tuesday’s result means Osieck’s side will face the runners-up from Group D in the quarter finals, with either Iraq or North Korea the likely opponents.

“It was our target to go to the quarter-finals and I’m glad to achieve the target,” Osieck said.

“We have seen in other games that there are quality teams and I’m happy to be still in the competition.”

“All the teams are good and whoever we are going to play against, the match is going to be tough.”

“It doesn’t matter who we play because there is great deal of quality in the group but we must be ready and play our own game.”

Australia do have some personnel issues, with Jason Culina, Luke Wilkshire and David Carney all missing from Tuesday’ match due to injury, while Brett Emerton picked up his second yellow card of the tournament against Bahrain and will miss the quarter-final.

Bahrain coach Salman Sharida was pleased with his side’s performance despite the loss, and said they deserved more out of the match.

“We have had a good performance tonight and we were the better side as we controlled the game and we were organised,” Sharida said.

“We got into the Australian area a lot but we missed a lot of chances. Missing chances in such a game is not acceptable as we wanted to get the three points but we played against an experienced side who have a lot of good players.”

“Australia and Korea Republic are strong teams and they are in a good position in Asian football.”

“We have had some difficult situations in the team but the players showed a good performance in the matches that we had.”

As you can guess these aren’t the words of Manchester United’s Park Ji Sung. They are the philosophical sentiments of Dong Fangzhuo, who had been offloaded in August 2008 by Manchester United after spending two years on loan to Belgian second division side Royal Antwerp and much of the following two years either in the United reserves or injured. Whilst Park Ji Sung is the resounding success, it is fair to say that the Asian market’s potential has not nearly been utilised.

The Premier League has seen the likes of Seol Ky-hyeon, Lee Young-pyo, Kim Do-heon and more make little more than a transient impression on the English game. The successes (Park Ji Sung and now Bolton’s Lee Chung-Yong) are definitely exceptions, but why is this the case? Gavin Hamilton, editor of World Soccer magazine, articulated his theory behind Asia’s unfulfilled mass potential:

“They are making a breakthrough but it doesn’t help when Asian teams get hammered at World Cups,” Hamilton told Reuters back in 2008. “It’s the only time the rest of the world sees Asian football. Commercially, clubs are not making much money from Asian players and there are work permit problems. That’s how they’re being judged.”

Despite the World Cup being co-hosted by Japan and South Korea in 2002, the success of the home nation under Guus Hiddink, and players like Park and Chung-Yong proving there is genuine talent as well as marketing goldmines in the continent, are Hamilton’s words still resonant two year on? North Korea’s 7-0 thrashing today at the hands of Portugal, South Korea’s humbling 4-1 defeat to Argentina and Japan’s relatively uninspiring two matches (despite victory against Cameroon) proves the sweeping judgments are merited on a national scale. A dangerous problem with stereotypes however is that, despite collectively being validated by results at World Cups, they certainly overshadow the individual abilities of players.

If we further the scope of the Asian market to include players of Indian and Pakistani descent we see an even more startling lack of representation in the English leagues. According to the 2001 census there were a little over 2.3 million Asian or British Asian people living in the UK, constituting some 4% of the total population. Yet only seven British Asian players earn their living in the professional game*. The Commission for Racial Equality released the results of a survey in 2004 which found only 10 British Asian players in Premier League academies – 0.8% of the total figure (in the past six years this figure has not noticeably increased). Again however, these statistics mean nothing if there are no attempts to understand the root cause of such misrepresentation. Piarra Powar, director of football’s equality and inclusion campaign Kick It Out, has some reasons to offer:

“One of the problems in football is that the Asian community is seen as one that doesn’t play football and doesn’t play football at the highest level. What’s more, the key people who are responsible for identifying talent that feed into professional clubs, I think, hold those views. Ultimately I think there is a sense [from the clubs] that getting an Asian player on board might be new – it would be untried, untested, so it may bring problems that the club or academy can’t deal with.”

Powar’s words offer a differing perspective but fail to address a chain of causation that, in reality, is merited; the Asian community really does not play football at the highest level so the stereotype is hardly unwarranted. But his argument that this prejudice hampers the futures of individual talents is, like the problems mentioned above with South Korea, North Korea and Japan at the World Cup, definitely credible. Premier League clubs have been quick to capitalise by scheduling pre season tours in Asia and Chelsea and Arsenal’s recent ventures into the subcontinent for young talent exhibits a growing interest in Asian players. Whether the basis for such ventures is in shirt sales or actual talent scouting remains to be seen at this early stage though.

From a marketing point of view the acquisition of veritable Asian talent is unbelievable. Yet the stance of commerciality and genuine talent being mutually exclusive is as dismissive as it is prejudiced; Park Ji Sung certainly warrants his place in United’s starting line up based on output instead of popularity. Though they are young nations in footballing terms there is no reason why more players from Asia can’t make the cultural and professional leap into the top flight, given a fair chance and a little bit of luck – something needed in all cases.

*as of 2009

Related article: A Small Step for Indian Football

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Click image below to see a gallery of the Italian babes at the World Cup:

1.Argentina have an embarassment of riches up front

Whilst Gonzalo Higuain may have grabbed the headlines (and the hastily awarded itv.com man of the match award), the impressive displays of his fellow attacking team-mates suggest that Argentina may have the best strikeforce at the World Cup. The way that Higuain managed to work in fluid synchronicity with the mesmeric Messi, industrious Tevez and tricky di Maria in a revolving quartet of creativity was a thing of pure beauty. Aside from the aforementioned foursome, Sergio Aguero managed to cap off an impressive 15-minute cameo with an assist, whilst treble-winning 30-goal hitman Diego Milito failed to even make it off the bench.

2.Players appear to be getting even stupider

A colleague of mine initially made this point on Tuesday in light of earlier World Cup events, but the petulant behaviour of Nigeria’s Sani Kaita must rank as the most idiotic act of stupidity that this tournament has seen so far. With his side 1-0 up against an anaemic Greece after 33 minutes, Kaita foolishly kicked out at Greece’s Vasilis Torisidis, in a move that ultimately cost his side three valuable points.

3.Individual mistakes can be decisive

Due to the short nature of international tournaments, the damaging effect of mistakes can be far crueller than those committed in domestic leagues. Yesterday we saw three players’ unfortunate gaffes directly lead to goals. Argentina’s ponytailed centre-back Martin Demichelis’ defensive error allowed Lee Chung-Yong to nip in and score an unlikely goal for South Korea. Nigeria’s Vincent Enyeama, whose performances up until the 71st minute of yesterday’s game had made him an early contender for player of the tournament, failed to control a tame shot and provided Vasilis Torosidis with the opportunity to net the winning goal for Greece. France centre-back Eric Abidal’s failure to stay in line with the rest of his defence allowed Mexico forward Javier Hernandez to beat the offside trap and coolly slot the ball past Hugo Lloris.

4.Sacre bleu!

France are bad. Really bad. Although yesterday’s limp display was an ever so slight improvement upon their showing against Uruguay, it is clear that there are deep problems existing within the French camp. On the brink of an ignominious first-round elimination, France deservedly lost to a well-drilled Mexico side. Raymond Domenech’s side looked disjointed and unimaginative, failing to create any clear chances and displaying a woeful lack of fluency. Although the players must share the blame, questions must be asked of the much-maligned outgoing manager, who has woefully mismanaged an undeniably talented group of footballers.

5.The boot-iful game

For some of the world’s biggest companies, the World Cup is an unbelievable platform for product placement. Whilst watching the three games yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice the ridiculous number of players wearing the same orange and silver Nike boots (apparently the boot in question is known as the “Mercurial Vapor Superfly II”). Having been alerted to their prevalence during Argentina v South Korea, I decided to tally up the number of players wearing them in the day’s subsequent games; Greece v Nigeria & France v Mexico featured no less than twenty (yes, TWENTY) players sporting said boots. According to Nike statistics, 40% of all players at this summer’s World Cup are wearing them.

Given that Carlos Tevez and Georgios Samaras were spotted wearing them, it seems as though they’re suited to both excellent and completely rubbish footballers alike.

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Click image below to see a gallery of the Brazilian babes at the World Cup

The favourites
The underachievers
Fallen giants
Surprise Nations

The so called “Favourites”

Brazil- It’s rare to enter a WC without Brazil being amongst the group of favourites, and this is no different. After their poor showing in Germany 06 this Brazil team under guidance of coach Dunga will see anything but lifting the Jules Rimet trophy as a failure. Starting from the top down you can justify their place in this group. They have arguably the best goalkeeper in the world in Julio Ceaser. A defense spearheaded by the no nonsense Lúcio, with their usual gut busting full backs in the form of Douglas Maicon and Michel Bastos. A midfield where Kaka is given freedom to roam and Gilberto Silva he task of protecting the back 4. An attack where the likes of Robhino or Luis Fabiano can cut through a defense without hesitation. The only doubt cast over this squad was the decision by Dunga to leave Pato, Ronaldinho, and Adriano behind.

Strengths: Goals from every area of the field bar the goalkeeper.

Weaknesses: Weaknesses at the back with attack minded defenders.

Spain- Labelled a perennial under achiever, Spain head to South Africa playing the best football in the nation’s history. They won Euro 2008 in an almost effortless fashion and although the WC will pose a tougher test, you wouldn’t put it past them to go all the way. They went on a 35 game unbeaten streak. They eased through qualifying. They have one of the best goalkeepers in the world in Iker Casillas. They have possibly the best front 2 heading into this tournament in Fernando Torres and David Villa. And are spoilt for choice in midfield with names, like Xavi, Inniesta, Fabregas, Senna, Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets just to name a few. So what’s stopping them from going all the way? Nobody but themselves.

Strengths: Clinical forwards, and an army of talented midfielders.

Weaknesses: Consistency. They have never maintained consistency throughout a WC.

Argentina- So far Diego Maradona’s spell as Argentina’s coach can only be described as eventful. Saying that they scraped qualifying by the skin of their teeth would be exaggerating, but they did cut it fine. Despite not beating Brazil in their 2 games and getting hammered 6-1 by Bolivia, they still head to South Africa with one of the best squads. Maradona has mixed and matched youth and experience. With players like Juan Seba Veron with bags of experience, and the likes of 22 year old current world player of the year Lionel Messi. By looking at this squad you can already see where they’re strongest. They have an abundance of fire power. With the likes of Messi, Tevez, Higuain, Aguero, and Diego Milito, once can’t help expect a bagful of goals from this team. Their only weakness here is Maradona’s indecisiveness. He’s so far used 78 players during his spell as coach and is not any closer to knowing his best XI.

Strengths: An embarrassment of riches up front

Weaknesses: Left out 2 big names in Cambiaso and Zanetti. Still doesn’t know best XI

Click here to see the underachievers

Heading into qualification Australia looked like one of the strongest teams, and it was no surprise when they topped Group A. They remained unbeaten in their 8 games, picking up 20 points and conceding just 1 goal. Premiership and Everton star Tim Cahill is one of their key players, whilst Blackburn midfielder Brett Emerton top scored with 4 goals. Japan finished second in the group to book their place in next summer’s tournament as well, losing just to Australia. Bahrain finished ahead of Qatar and Uzebekistan in 3rd place to qualify for the play-off.

In Group B, both Korean teams triumphed in what was a fiercely competitive group. South Korea were unbeaten and UAE managed only 1 point, but only 1 point separated Korea DPR, Saudi Arabia and Iran. South Korea topped the group and Manchester United’s Ji-Sung Park will be looking to impress in the finals, whilst Korea DPR scraped 2nd place on goal difference ahead of Saudi Arabia who qualified for a play-off against Bahrain.

Bahrain triumphed against Saudi Arabia on away goals and faced New Zealand for a place in the 2010 World Cup finals. New Zealand won the Oceania qualifying section after comfortably winning their qualifying group. After a goalless first leg in Bahrain, a goal from Plymouth striker Rory Fallon who plies his trade in the English Championship, helped New Zealand to an aggregate 1-0 win and their first appearance in the FIFA World Cup finals since 1982.