Kaiser Sweeper
Disrupting Accepted Narratives: On Spain’s Olympics and Selective Memory
By Jordan Brown
Spain’s summer tournaments are over, with the results being a glorious and historic victory, and a quietly disgraceful defeat. For all the glowing press that came out of Spain’s record-setting Euro 2012 performance, there is a comparative hill of silence with regards to their Olympic stumble. Sources that can usually be trusted to have something to say about such a story have been moot, both online and in print.
Michael Cox’s Zonal-Marking seems to be on hiatus after the Euros—offering us no autopsy of the exit, the usually insightful Sid Lowe only wrote an early Olympics piece on De Gea’s expectations for the tournament (pre-ignominy), but curiously—nothing since. No feature on the Football Ramble, nothing but match recaps on Soccernet, and in some cosmic coincidence Spanishfootball.info is down for maintenance. Now these may not be everyone’s personal sources for football coverage, but they’re on my daily round, so to find no real response to Spain’s poor display on any of them begs the question, why aren’t we talking about this?
![Matchday 3: Great Britain vs. Brazil [Photo Credit: Getty]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m81rwvKqCF1rwlvdqo2_r1_1280.jpg)
![Matchday 3: Great Britain vs. Brazil [Photo Credit: Getty]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m81rwvKqCF1rwlvdqo1_1280.jpg)
Matchday 3: Great Britain vs. Brazil [Photo Credit: Getty]
![New Zealand players perform the Haka after their 3-1 win over Cameroon. [Photo Credit: AFP]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m81noqJNdI1rwlvdqo1_1280.jpg)
![USWNT in their 1-0 win over North Korea [Photo Credit: Getty]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m81j2y3S4V1rwlvdqo1_1280.jpg)
![USWNT in their 1-0 win over North Korea [Photo Credit: Getty]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m81j2y3S4V1rwlvdqo2_1280.jpg)
USWNT in their 1-0 win over North Korea [Photo Credit: Getty]
Photo Credit: Getty.
![Men’s Olympic Football: Matchday 2
What an upset today, with 10-man Senegal besting Uruguay stars Cavani and Suarez. Brazil also had problems getting around Belarus’ defense, but they persevered and came away with all three points. But most shockingly Spain went down 1-0 to Honduras in the first half and couldn’t come back, meaning they are mathematically eliminated from the tournament. With today’s results all four groups have teams still battling for the right to move on to the knockout stages, so don’t miss the final group games on August 1st in what should feature some amazing matches. [Photo Credit: Getty]
Matchday 2 Results:
Senegal 2-0 Uruguay
Great Britain 3-1 United Arab Emirates
Mexico 2-0 Gabon
South Korea 2-1 Switzerland
Egypt 1-1 New Zealand
Brazil 3-1 Belarus
Japan 1-0 Morocco
Spain 0-1 Honduras](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7xg6x42xC1rwlvdqo1_r1_1280.png)
Men’s Olympic Football: Matchday 2
What an upset today, with 10-man Senegal besting Uruguay stars Cavani and Suarez. Brazil also had problems getting around Belarus’ defense, but they persevered and came away with all three points. But most shockingly Spain went down 1-0 to Honduras in the first half and couldn’t come back, meaning they are mathematically eliminated from the tournament. With today’s results all four groups have teams still battling for the right to move on to the knockout stages, so don’t miss the final group games on August 1st in what should feature some amazing matches. [Photo Credit: Getty]
Matchday 2 Results:
- Senegal 2-0 Uruguay
- Great Britain 3-1 United Arab Emirates
- Mexico 2-0 Gabon
- South Korea 2-1 Switzerland
- Egypt 1-1 New Zealand
- Brazil 3-1 Belarus
- Japan 1-0 Morocco
- Spain 0-1 Honduras
![Women’s Olympic Football: Matchday 2
After today’s results, Brazil, Great Britain and the United States have all reached the quarterfinals based on their points total, in a day in which there were no games where both teams scored. The top two teams points-wise from each group will advance to the knockout stages, but the two best third-place teams also move on, ensuring that the final group matchday on July 31st should be great to watch. [Photo Credit: Getty]
Matchday 2 Results:
New Zealand 0-1 Brazil
Great Britain 3-0 Cameroon
Japan 0-0 Sweden
Canada 3-0 South Africa
United States 3-0 Colombia
France 5-0 North Korea](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7vq9puFob1rwlvdqo1_1280.png)
Women’s Olympic Football: Matchday 2
After today’s results, Brazil, Great Britain and the United States have all reached the quarterfinals based on their points total, in a day in which there were no games where both teams scored. The top two teams points-wise from each group will advance to the knockout stages, but the two best third-place teams also move on, ensuring that the final group matchday on July 31st should be great to watch. [Photo Credit: Getty]
Matchday 2 Results:
- New Zealand 0-1 Brazil
- Great Britain 3-0 Cameroon
- Japan 0-0 Sweden
- Canada 3-0 South Africa
- United States 3-0 Colombia
- France 5-0 North Korea
2012 Olympic Soccer TV Schedule
Check the link for U.S. programming schedules for both the men and women’s tournaments.
