Up in the stands

For a football tournament played in the good spirit and togetherness of the Olympic games, there was something sinister about the taste left in the mouth following Luis Suarez’ appearance against Team GB on Wednesday night that was played to a soundtrack of boos and barracking. Suarez is a controversial figure with an 18 month spell in the Premier League blighted by an array of incidents, most notably his sanction for a racial offence against Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, but it would take the most unforgiving of moral judgement to argue that Suarez deserves to be subjected to the kind of abuse that trivialises the setting the Uruguayan found himself in.

It is an irregular sight to see a stadium of Valley Parade’s size and heritage play host to the likes of Barnet and Fleetwood on a weekly basis but that is the fate that has belied the Bantams since their ITV Digital induced capitulation through the football league that began at the turn of the millennium. Since then, they have experienced two administrations and fifteen managers in succession of Paul Jewell, the manager who oversaw their miraculous stay in the Premier League of the final day in 2000 with a win over Liverpool. From that pulsating day, Bradford’s journey has only been in one direction, a twisty, winding road down.

Ever since the creation of Europe’s ground-breaking Premier League that saw football announce its name on a global stage with record-smashing television deals being the order of the day, the sport has undergone a kind of unravelling megalomania that has seen it swell, in some cases, beyond its means and often beyond accessibility to the type of working-man supporter that were regularly found on the terraces before the commercial revolution set in.

As with every summer of Arsenal transfer activity, pre-season has been marred by rumblings of a contract dispute involving a major player. Following on from the lead of Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas before him in voicing their displeasure with a perceived lack of ambition in Arsene Wenger’s choice to use the Emirates coffers with frugality, this time round it is Robin Van Persie, scorer of 37 goals in his most recent season, to deny the Gunners his commitment to the cause as the Dutchman sees trophies and medals as a more attractive proposition.

Many hearts were broken when the new super-powers of European football flexed their financial muscle to kick-start their transfer assault on Serie A with the signing of Ezequiel Lavezzi, preceding AC Milan’s Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic through the arrivals section of the newly mega-rich Parc Des Princes, 30 million euros the price to land one third of the “Holy Trinity” and threaten to disrupt Walter Mazarri’s talented side that reached the second round of the Champions League and won the Coppa Italia.

As a sort of footnote to the men’s experiment on the Olympic stage during the 2012 games, the female equivalent have had to settle for the typical marginalisation it usually faces when competing for headlines in the default-male orientated sport of football. Hope Powell’s squad qualified at the top of group E having conceded 0 goals and winning all three matches to set up a quarter-final date with Canada.

The men’s Olympic football competition at the London games has been surprisingly immersive so far, the samba beat of Brazil have lit up group C while entertainment has been provided throughout the groups by the likes of Morocco, Honduras, South Korea and Mexico, whilst Team GB have provided adept enough performances to maintain a jingoistic interest in a tournament that has faced questions over its value in an Olympic setting, the age-old argument where a gold medal is not the pinnacle of the sport.

Team GB’s unique odyssey into the football competition of the home 2012 Olympic Games rolls into Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on Wednesday as Stuart Pearce’s men need just a point from an appointment with Uruguay to progress into the quarter-finals. It is fitting for Team GB that the group decider should come in the country that has hailed the two catalysts for the side’s promising position in these games, the aging excellence of Craig Bellamy and Ryan Giggs.