Olympic Soccer 2012: Why Uruguay Has Been a Huge Letdown at the Olympics

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: August 3, 2012

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Spain's exit from the 2012 Summer Olympics has been well-documented as a failure by the country's U-23 players to live up to their hype and individual talents. But one story that has been very lightly discussed has been Uruguay's exit from the Olympics.

Prior to the tournament, B/R's Michael Cummings wrote an article on why Uruguay could be a very interesting team to follow and support at this year's games.

The basic premise of the article was that though Uruguay wasn't as strong as Spain or Brazil, or as favored by the media as Great Britain, the Uruguay U-23 squad certainly boasted enough talent to be an outside contender for Olympic glory.

Indeed, history was also in Uruguay's favor at this tournament—they had never lost an Olympics match prior to this tournament, having secured the gold medal in each of their last two appearances in 1924 and 1928.

Unfortunately, history did not repeat itself in 2012.



Uruguay got off to a solid start, with youth stars Nicholas Lodeiro and Gaston Ramirez both scoring off assists from captain Luis Suarez in a 2-1 win over the United Arab Emirates.

But that would be the last time Uruguay would score in the tournament, as they lost 2-0 to Senegal and 1-0 to Great Britain.

The Senegal loss was particularly disappointing for Uruguay. Senegal had surprisingly clinched a point in their opening match vs. Great Britain, but they still boasted a relatively unknown bunch of players.

Even the country's over-age contingent of Dame N'Doye, Mohamed Diame and Pape Gueye was hardly the best crop of players that the Senegal could offer to its Olympic team.

Furthermore, Senegal did not have the players to play good quality football against Uruguay. They lined up in a 5-4-1, and played highly physical football, and relied upon striking prodigy Moussa Konate to take advantage of his half-chances, which he did.

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Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football

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