Tokyo Olympics Men and women’s tournament previews
But drama of Rio 2016 is unlikely to repeated
In the end, God was still Brazilian. After 120 minutes of compelling and combustive box-to-box football, the hosts’ lodestar Neymar delivered salvation from the penalty spot for Brazil to clinch their maiden gold medal at the 2016 Olympic football tournament in the final against Germany. The final itself was not a pent-up grudge match for that unforgiving afternoon in Belo Horizonte two years earlier, but even so victory served as a redemptive triumph for the South Americans. At the final whistle, the Maracana, the cathedral of Brazilian football, exploded in an apocalyptic bedlam.
Those scenes of delirium won’t be repeated in Tokyo. Having been drawn alongside Germany, Saudi Arabia and Ivory Coast in Group D, the Brazilians could well reach the final again, but football does not enjoy the same cultural significance in Japan, even if it’s imperative for the host nation to offer a respectable showing. Above all, because of the global health crisis there will be few fans in the stands, or none at all, to encourage and cheer on whichever teams progress to the gold medal match.
At the time of writing, the milliondollar question was still rumbling on: would the Tokyo Olympic Games take place? Japan was struggling to contain the coronavirus and labouring under stringent health and sanitary measures to curb the pandemic, but organisers boldly declared they had entered “operational delivery mode”. The Japanese government and IOC always took the attitude that the show had to go on, no matter what
– a new wave of infections, rising coronavirus numbers in Japan or a state of emergence in the host city.
Outside the bubble of Olympic decision makers, scepticism remained high. Polls consistently demonstrated that a vast majority of the Japanese population was against the Olympic Games, even if it meant postponing the global extravaganza for a second time.
Public health specialists suggested the Games’ safety plans put athletes and others at risk, and leading newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, an Olympic partner, called for cancellation.
Even so, it’s highly likely that Egypt and Spain will kick off the Olympic football tournament on July 22 at the Dome in Sapporo. As is tradition, the
competition will be staged nationwide, at seven venues in six cities, with action stretching from Yokohama, Saitama, Tokyo and Kashima in a central cluster to both Sendai and Sapporo in the north. Five of the seven grounds hosted matches during the first-ever World Cup finals in the Far East in 2002.
Sixteen participants will compete for gold to the backdrop of a suffocating 17-day obsession with badminton, archery, judo and a swat of other understated sports. Once again, the football tournament will become a sideshow, almost a nuisance in the Olympic cosmos. The importance and raison d’être of the competition have long been questioned. Ever since the introduction of the World Cup and, later, other continental tournaments, the competition lost its relevance. As a consequence, the quality has suffered, with teams that have not grown in an organic manner and the random presence of three over-age players.
FIFA rules no longer require clubs to release players for the tournament, but hosts Japan will count on Sampdoria’s Maya Yoshida, Stuttgart’s Wataru Endo and ex-Marseille full-back Hiroki Sakai to inject their team with experience. The Japanese participated in the 2019 Copa America with their Under-23 team to prepare and mustered two draws with both Uruguay and Ecuador after a 4-0 defeat against Chile. Real Madrid young gun Takefusa Kubo and Antwerp’s Koji Miyoshi are among the players from that squad who should feature in Tokyo after FIFA raised the age limit to Under-24 following the postponement of the Olympic Games last year. Under the motto “One Team, Two Ages”, head coach Hajime Moriyasu is doubling up to coach the Olympic team as well, but at times he struggled to complete the puzzle because of limited player availability during the pandemic.
In March, Japan defeated Argentina at U24 level, a result and performance that lend some credence to the hosts’ ambitious aim for gold. Japan won’t face the pressure Brazil did five years ago when the Olympic medal was the only one missing from the hosts’ trophy cabinet, but Asia has never won the men’s tournament since the first iteration at the Olympic Games of Paris in 1900. In fact, Japan and South Korea have been the only teams from the continent to reach the podium, winning the bronze medal in 1968 and 2012 respectively. In Group B, the Koreans will have to navigate past Romania, Honduras and New Zealand, who for the first time will field a fully professional team.
Perhaps the winner will come from the subsequent groups. Argentina won the tournament consecutively in 2004 and 2008, and impressed at the U20 South American Championship in 2019. Brazil are the defending champions, but will the team of coach Andre Jardine take the competition with all the gravitas of previous iterations when Brazil longed for Olympic gold?
The Olympic team represents a halfway house to the Selecao, and Lyon midfielder Bruno Guimaraes, Arsenal wonderkid Gabriel Martinelli and electric Ajax forward Antony are among the names who will hope this tournament helps them make the step up. In 2016, Brazil turned to Neymar, Renato Augusto and goalkeeper Weverton as over-age players. This time they’ve opted for the veteran Dani Alves, Sevilla centre-back Diego Carlos and Athletico Paranaense keeper Santos, with many clubs unwilling to release their key players due to a congested calendar and critical fixtures in the Copa Libertadores in August.
The Brazilians will open their campaign against Germany in a repeat of the 2016 final. Europe has traditionally neglected the Olympic tournament, highlighting the relative insignificance of the competition. In the past two decades, the continent has come to dominate the World Cup but, before 2016, Spain were the last Europeans to reach the Olympic final, in 2000. Since then Cameroon, Nigeria, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil have all clinched gold. Can Germany and Spain, the last two U21 European champions, turn the tide and demonstrate that football’s relationship with the Olympics shouldn’t be so fraught after all?
At the time of writing, the milliondollar question was still rumbling on: would the Tokyo Olympic Games take place?