Back-To-Back Gold Medals For Argentina
Story by Jeremy Ruane

Argentina clinched successive gold medals in the Olympic Men’s Football Tournament on Saturday, downing Nigeria 1-0 in Beijing’s “Birds’ Nest” to claim the crown at the Games of the 29th Olympiad.

Lionel Messi cleverly set up the winning goal just shy of the hour mark for Angel di Maria, whose chipped strike clinched victory for the Argentines in an uninspiring match not aided by the fact it was played in ferocious 42C heat.

Water-breaks were the order of the day as the players endured the challenging conditions in the midday sun, with Nigeria unable to get the better of Argentine goalkeeper Sergio Romero, despite having their fair share of chances to do so in a match watched by 89,102 fans.

It was the only match in the tournament which took place in the suffocating day-time heat - all others kicked off no earlier than 5pm local time. Why the tournament’s showpiece men’s fixture couldn’t enjoy a kick-off time more commensurate with those which had preceded it defies logic - surely the players’ well-being is of greater importance than global television times?

On Friday evening, Brazil, as expected, clinched the bronze medal with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Belgium, who succumbed to a Diego strike just shy of the half-hour mark.

This prompted Belgium’s best spell of the match, but the Brazilians rode out the storm, and struck on the counter-attack through Jo just before the interval. The Manchester City striker notched his second goal of this Shanghai Stadium encounter with virtually the last kick of the game, one which sealed Brazil’s 3-0 triumph in front of over 50,000 fans.

These Olympics have seen more spectators - nigh on 2.1 million - attending the Men’s and Women’s Football Tournaments than ever before. The challenge for London 2012 is to follow that, regardless of whether they can put aside ancient geographic divides in order to muster Great Britain teams in both the men’s and women’s competitions.

It would be a crying shame if, a century out from Great Britain becoming the first nation to win consecutive footballing gold medals, the hosts of this quadrennial gathering of the sporting world’s great and good were not part of the pursuit of Olympic gold in a code whose history owes so much to its British heritage.

Details:
Gold medal match:
Argentina 1 (A. di Maria (58)), Nigeria 0 HT 0-0

Bronze medal match:
Brazil 3 (Diego (27), Jo (45, 90)), Belgium 0 HT 2-0

Final standings:
1 Argentina
2 Nigeria
3 Brazil
4 Belgium
5 Holland
6 Cameroon
7 Italy
8 Ivory Coast
9 USA
10 Korea Republic
11 Australia
12 China
13 Serbia
14 New Zealand
15 Japan
16 Honduras