With J Hutcherson
Four years from now, we'll get the working example of just how seriously we should be expected to take Olympic soccer. After all, if the British are deigning to play, it must be well worth the world's time.
The Women's Tournament has already anointed itself the equivalent of the World Cup, at least if you buy into the hype whenever a US Women's team wants to redeem a World Cup loss by winning the Olympics. That's been the scenario twice now for a tournament that's only existed since 1996.
Fair enough, considering it's the same teams. Then again, it's doubtful that the world's elite women's teams would be handing over World Cup wins for Olympic gold medals, and that includes the United States.
Even at full strength, putting over the Olympics as in the conversation with the World Cup is a tough one. Instead, it ends up occupying a space ahead of youth championships played in countries like Canada where they actually draw, but well back of anything having to do with the World Cup qualifying cycle, much less the actual Cup.
Well, except for mainstream US fans that assume the Men's Olympic soccer tournament is closer to Olympic basketball than Olympic baseball. Explaining that it exists in between with added star power while talking about the position of FIFA relative to the International Olympic Committee?
The reality is that the Men's Tournament does two things for the Olympics. It moves a lot of tickets and it allows a city-centered event to be spread among multiple cities. The LA Games put soccer in Boston and Annapolis, Maryland. The Atlanta Games used DC, Orlando, Miami, and Birmingham.
In other words, it follows the country model favored by the World Cup and drawing the obvious comparison. Right now, where it falls short is the artificial cap on the age of players, FIFA's last hedge against setting up real competition for the world's only other marquee event.
Why FIFA allowed it to get this far is a very good question. With President Blatter already talking about a combined British soccer team as allowed but only for one Olympics, one might ask why there are any Olympic restrictions rather than more.
For FIFA, that's the wrong result even if the obvious conclusion. Allowing the soccer tournaments to extend well past the host area, the overage exemptions, and the demand for tickets to what should be at most a second-tier competition are only successes for the IOC. There's such a thing as being too good of a partner.
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