Why Is Olympic Football So Weird?

The Olympics is supposed to be the epitome of sports. However, when it comes to football, it's nowhere close.

Why is that?

00:00 - Introduction
03:10 - FIFA vs The Olympics
05:00 - Who Needs The Olympics?
08:41 - The Problem With Great Britain

Background music:
@pinkxo (Prod Pink)

Producer: Tinashe Chipako
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[smoli]

Small correction, Great Britain is only England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Irish athletes choose whether they want to represent Great Britain or Ireland.

[albertvillarreal]

Olympic Football is basically a U-23 World Cup with three overage players allowed per team. I think both FIFA and the IOC want it that way. On FIFA’s part, so the tournament doesn’t compete with the World Cup and on the IOC’s part, so football doesn’t overshadow the other sports who’re only in the limelight every four years.

I think the tournament matters to football federations outside Europe where the regional youth tournaments aren’t as competitive as the UEFA U-19 and UEFA U-21. So Olympic football and the U-20 World Cup are the only tournaments where non European federations can truly gauge the state of their youth development.

[rohithraman]

Look at the argentina 2008 team that won gold in beijing and out of that team, Messi, Aguero, Di Maria, Mascherano, Romero, Zabaleta, Garay, Gago, Lavezzi got to the 2014 world cup final
Also look at the spain team that won silver in 2021 in Tokyo, Simon, Cucurella, Zubimendi, Merino, Oyarzabal, Pedri, Olmo all won Euro 2024

But sometimes you get a team like Brazil 2016 that won gold where only about 2-3 players became senior national team regulars

[Darilon]

Just go full amateur. That would be fun. The international sunday league.

[ChicoSuaveMang]

The worst-kept secret about the Olympics is that it is mainly for the not well-watched sports that are only popular every four years, when the Olympics roll around.

Sports like basketball and football are already so huge and popular that they don’t need the Olympics, but it’s a nice little thing to have.

That being said, no footballer in the right mind would pick an Olympic Gold Medal over winning a continental title like the Copa or Euros, and ESPECIALLY not the World Cup.

[Spiedi]

I really appreciate the quick tldr at the beginning, so many "informative videos" tackle a topic by first giving a lengthy, more often than not already known, backstory to pad the runtime. This wasnt that. The important information was quick and concise and the rest of the video was well strucktured and important to the topic. Much love

[omgkid]

Shout out from Johannesburg bro, your videos are really entertaining pray

[Marc_Araujo]

Fermin Lopez is actually on Spain's Olympic squad, the only player from the Euro 2024-winning team at this tourney.

[EddysFunFinds]

Mad respect for getting straight to it instead of baiting and dragging out a topic just for the 11 minute monetization mark. Subscribed.

[benjaminhoover]

Really appreciate how you formatted this talk, getting the full answer up front made me want to stick around to hear the details! lol

[dylanparker]

I'll never forget the 2016 Olympic final. Brazil triumphed by beating the very nation that had humiliated them just 2 years earlier: Germany. Having helped Barca win the UCL just a year earlier, Neymar looked unstoppable at that point.

[NoOne-kstu]

Summed up olympic football perfectly with just 2 words 😂

[matriquess]

Still remember 2008, was in my last year of fundamental school (13/14 years) and just took my backpack and left school until had to talk to the principal that I needed to leave to watch Brasil (with Ronaldinho, Alexandre Pato among others) against Argentina with Messi, Di Maria, Aguero...

luckily she liked me and allowed, sadly we lost 3x0

but 2016 still have video on my knees as Neymar took the last pen

[anyhandlewoulddo]

First time ever a YouTuber is as honest as he can be and gives you the answer that you came for before anything else and let you choose if you want to stay or go with your answer already. Subscribed

[j.ackermann]

Why Olympic Football Is So Weird? Because its completely overshadowed by the world cup and nobody needs another worldwide tournament without the best players.

[bricktop.]

Anyone old enough to remember Olympic Soccer on the OG playstation? Possibly the best football game ever made.

[ezraezra]

The women's football of the Olympics is completely a senior team competition, only behind the FIFA Women's World Cup. Additionally, the women's version of Team GB football played the Olympics in 2012 and 2020, and were supposed to participate in this year's Olympics. However, FIFA changed its qualification rule for the UEFA contestants, where the Women's Nations League is now used instead of the performances in the FIFA Women's World Cup. England (and Team GB) barely missed out the Olympics this year due to the Netherlands' last-minute goals against Belgium in the Women's Nations League.

[OhyeahMrKrabz]

Put it simply Fifa doesn't want the Olympics to rival the World Cup so they had those rules of it only being U-23

[GavrielSchechterman]

Small correction the Olympics is considered the peak of international basketball

[Cheseabluesdrogba]

Thats crazy it doesn't even feature the best youth players