| Team GB to face stern Brazil test |
MIDDLESBROUGH The team that many of their compatriots didn’t want will return in public after decades of unmourned absence on Friday without their biggest star and against one of the favourites for an Olympic football tournament where tickets are being withdrawn.
Welcome to the strange world of the Great Britain team, who are set to play their lone, full-blown warm-up match against Brazil at northeast side Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium, far away from the Games hub of London.
Not since 1960 has a British side competed at an Olympics and, even though they are now on their doorstep, there are many within UK football who wish the exile was ongoing.
Currently, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all exist as independent football nations.
Despite repeated assurances from Fifa, the world governing body, the fear among the Celtic countries, who have urged their players to boycott Olympic football, is that involvement in any Great Britain team will jeopardise their separate identities and one day lead to them being absorbed into an all-British side dominated by England.
Team GB manager Stuart Pearce, the former England defender, always insisted he would select his 18-man squad on merit and, in so doing, has spared 50 per cent of the constituent nations of Britain a dilemma by not picking any Scottish or Northern Irish players.
However, that has bolstered the hand of the “doomsday scenario” lobby. And Pearce, who has chosen 13 Englishmen and five Welshmen, also showed the same lack of sentimentality that saw him nicknamed “Psycho” in his playing days by omitting David Beckham, not just the most famous active British footballer but a global celebrity.
Agence France-Presse
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