Team GB agree on Home National involvement

Huzzah! Team GB will go to the ball. Or rather, the 2012 Olympics. After months of negotiations, it has been announced that the Great Britain Football Team will comprise of the best players from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Now this has not gone down well with the Scottish, Northern Irish, or Scottish FA’s. However, it is good news for the English as well as the majority of Welsh people. I single out the Welsh as, apart from generally having cracking banter, they possess two of the best young prospects in the British game – namely Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey. These two little starlets will walk into the GB side.

If only this could happened during World Cups! Imagine what we could have achieved with Ryan Giggs on the left at any point over the last 20 years!

Watching the England Under-21’s in Denmark over the last few weeks had left me with mixed feelings about the future of the GB team at the Olympics. Firstly, the team lived up to the national stereotype of promising a lot and delivering little. Secondly, there was no genuine leader in the middle of the park. However, with this announcement comes a fresh wave of British optimism. Couple that with the likely inclusion of Jack Wilshere, and the man mountain up front of Andy Carroll and we look to have a serious team going into the tournament.

As a brief FYI, the competing football teams have some selection rules they have to adhere to. The main one is that players have to be under 23 years old, however each team is allowed three representatives over 23. It all gets a bit complicated when you note that players can be over 23 (but not count as one of the three over) if they were 23 during the previous season. So we could have a load of 24 years olds, and still have Beckham, Hart or (perhaps controversially) a Darren Fletcher.

Food for thought; and a source of perpetual gossip, rumour, and counter theories in the run up to the squad announcement.