2012 Summer Olympics in London

OK, my first actual post about international soccer (I think)!

I really don't pay that much attention to the news, and had been ho-hum to realize the 2012 Summer Olympics were currently going on yesterday as I enjoyed a meal out at a sports bar - and then I realized: that means there will be international soccer on TV for a few weeks! (Sure, nobody takes the Olympics seriously - nowhere nearly as seriously as people take the World Cup or the Euro Cup - or CONCACAF, for us here in the US - for instance; but it's like have ~20 international friendlies in rapid succession on TV over the next few weeks - yay!)

So, I go to see when the USMNT (the "United States Men's National [Soccer] Team", an abbreviation I use almost every sentence when discussing international soccer, so, in the words of my Calc III TA, "Get used to it") is playing in this year's Olympics, and I discover, to my horror, we evidently failed - to - qualify!

So, I look into the matter a little more deeply, and it turns out 1) we sent our U-23 team to represent us (I'm still not sure if all countries do this; that would take even more of the fun out of watching the Olympics, knowing it is not the actual MNT's playing) and 2) we failed to qualify in March (2012). (I didn't exactly realize we had a U-23 team; when I was a kid, the numbering went by the even numbers - U-6, U-8, U-10, ..., U-18, and then the one outlier, U-21 - so I didn't know international soccer went up to U-23: I thought once you hit 21, you either played with the big boys or hung up the cleats, so that was an interesting learning experience).

Well, at least, there should be some international soccer on TV for the next few weeks (U-23 soccer though it may be). Match play evidently begin this Thursday (07/26/2012) and the Group Phase evidently ends next week Wednesday (08/01/2012). I'll try to post my comments on the occasional interesting match as time and interest permit; enjoy!