Olympic Football: What's up with Europe?

Europe boasted of a contingent of four teams, more than any other continent was allowed, in their Olympic campaign.

The World Cup winners Italy were there, along with former winners Belgium, football powerhouse Holland, and qualifiers Serbia.

What went wrong?

This question begs to be asked as Europe was unable to get a medal and indeed in spite of a numerical advantage as far as the number of teams goes, only managed to get one side into the quarterfinals.

Belgium getting to the quarterfinals was a bit of a disappointment as they were flattened in their remaining matches conceding an alarming seven goals in two matches in the process.

Olympic football is mainly made up of younger players, 23 and under. In today's club football scene this age is, however, no longer considered young. Every player who took part was a professional.

To put age in perspective we could refer to European club star Cristiano Ronaldo, 23, or Euro sensation Fernando Torres, 24, along with many others.

So what exactly did go wrong?

Could this be part of a wider problem?

One theory states that Europe's insatiable thirst for foreign talent to feed its overpaid, overrated leagues is finally beginning to have an effect at a grassroots level. Homegrown talent seems to be few and far apart.

Others might say it was just a case of bad luck or lack of interest—but why send four teams if you are not interested in winning?

South America sent just two teams and came home with two medals. Hard to beat those stats.

Also the highlight of the tournament would have to be the Argentinian Messi—who openly defied his European club's attempt to hold him back and shined in the tournament moving one step closer to affirming his status as the world's number one.

Problem is that when all his celebrations are over he'll be on a plane back to football bollywood to cash in.

Everything comes at a price.

Is Europe paying dearly for its foreigner dominated leagues?