Olympic Football: Brazil to bring the big guns

Coventry will be one of the proud hosts of the 2012 Olympic Football tournament at the City of Coventry Stadium, renamed especially for the games.

Vital Football will be looking ahead to the competition on a regular basis over the coming year and focuses on the likely favourites for the competition, Brazil.

The Olympic Football tournament has evolved into an Under-23 competition since 1992 and despite the lack of interest in it from a British point of view, many of world football`s biggest names have put plenty of effort into winning gold medals and an Argentina side packed with star players such as Carlos Tevez (2004) and Lionel Messi (2008) have won the last two competitions.

The holders have not qualified for 2012 however and that could leave the way clear for their great rivals Brazil to win gold for the first time.

Mano Menezes is coach of both the full national team and the Olympic squad and with his country hosting the World Cup in 2014 and therefore qualifying automatically, the 2012 side will form the basis of that later squad and gain some crucial competitive matchplay at the same time.

That means the likes of Neymar, the new sensation of Brazilian football, and AC Milan`s Alexandre Pato and although the draw for the tournament will be made at a later date, they could be playing at the Ricoh Arena.