Football at the Olympics?!?

I've basically heard that phrase as much as But England aren't even playing in the last year upon telling anyone who doesn't watch much sport that I was going to Team GB's game on Sunday. For some reason people only associate running and jumping a la Daley Thompson with the Olympics and the concept of a football tournament is alien to them. Personally being the international football freak (or saddo) that I am, I've managed to follow the football tournament at every Olympics since Atlanta in 1996.

See, those1st two stars are for 1924 and 1928

As mentioned, this year I even managed to break my duck with regards to attending a major international football tournament. Some of you may question whether the Olympic football tournament can be classed as a major competition; as far as I'm concerned, if Uruguay are counting it, so am I (see 1924 and 1928)!! I went all statto geek on you all there didn't I?!? I apologise.

Deffo the first person I ever saw do the sky point

I'm currently loving the football, both Men's and Women's. I'm concious that every time I talk about the women's competition I sound a bit patronising, I swear I don't mean it ladies. Oh god that sounds patronising too and a bit cheesy in a weasely guy who thinks he's a bit of a Ladies Man kinda way... I swear I don;t think I'm a Ladies Man and I genuinely like Women's football. One of the things I love is that even the Brazilian ladies team have the one word names like Martha and Francile and they do that finger pointing to the sky thing, that Adriano invented, when they score like any true Brazilian should. If I was Brazilian my name would just be "Travis" rather than "Travis Newton" and I'd most definitely point to the sky when I scored, even if I wasn't that religious, just to look the part. I wouldn't want people to question my place in the Seleção (that's right check me and my Portuguse out, sign me up Mano Menez) due to my lack of finger pointing. I might even do little samba dance with a couple of other team mates just to convince everyone.

Speaking of celebrations, I loved the Senegalese one against Uruguay. This is a bit of a generalisation but you can always count on the African nations for a strange choreographed  routine I love it. The European World Cup in June was missing this (for obvious reasons), I think UEFA should invite one African team just for their celebrations. For anyone thinking that I've just made an outrageous statement I'd like to point out that CONMEBOL invite countries from outside of South America to the Copa America (although not for their celebratory dance routines). Went a bit geeky again there, didn't I? Hands up if you've never even heard of CONMEBOL (I'm imagining a load of hands going up in front of laptops and PCs etc). For those that aren't sure, their the South American equivalent of UEFA, I swear that's the last geely fact I'll write in this post.

I should probably speak about the actual football that has been happening, here's a brief summary. GB's Men's and Women's teams have both topped their groups and look ok, especially the ladies (oh god I'm doing it again aren't I...) I have placed a bet on the Mexicans to win the Men's competition which means, despite topping their group, they are due to crash out any day now (see my European World Cup Predictions). Neymar has looked ok but this was against some pretty average opposition, he did lay on a goal for Oscar (great name) in stoppage time against the Belarussians. Finally, Daniel Sturridge is greedier than a fat dude with a Greggs voucher; at one point Scot Sinclair and the rest of Wembley could have killed him on Sunday when he opted to run into trouble rather than lay the ball into Sinclair. I genuinely don't think I've ever seen a greedier professional player.

I'm off to bed now. I promise I'll try and post again very soon. Hopefully GB will do well and we'll enter the football again in Rio 2016. I've loved the coverage it has got this year.