2012 Summer Olympics: 5 Countries Who Should Be Competing in Olympic Soccer

The 2012 Summer Olympics will play host to some of the best soccer players and teams in the world, yet there are several teams who we wish were competing in London as well.

The Olympics are a young man's game, and most athlete are under the age of 30 across the Games. The soccer component will continue this trend, as each country is only allowed to have three players who were born before January 1, 1989 on their roster.

This makes for an exciting change in international soccer, as the Olympic Games force teams to rely on youth, rather than experience.

This key change sets the Olympic stage apart from the World Cup and Euro Cup, making the event truly unique.

The youth rule also follows in the Olympic spirit, as it allows countries who could not succeed in the World Cup to compete. Countries such as Gabon and Belarus will be fighting in the Olympic Games, yet they wouldn't stand a chance in the World Cup. In fact, neither of those countries has ever qualified for the World Cup.

However, some fans dispute this allowance of unknowns into the competition. The age rule hurts many European powerhouses. Some soccer fans question whether or not an international competition without some of the dominant countries competing is worth watching.

While it is good to have a competition that is different than the World Cup because the spectacle would lose its glory if the Olympics was exactly the same, these countries should still be competing in the London Games.

Argentina

How can you have an international competition without the best player in the world?

Lionel Messi and his native country of Argentina will be watching the Olympic Games from home, as they failed to make it to London.

Messi is the most exciting player to watch in the world, and he is one of the players that have helped Argentina to No. 7 in the world.

Argentina is one of the best countries in the world when it comes to soccer, and to exclude such a great team from contention is ludicrous.

United States of America

The Red, White & Blue narrowly missed out on the 2012 Olympic Games, after surrendering a stoppage time goal to El Salvador which forced a 3-3 tie that eliminated the U.S.

Without their National Team competing, Americans are unlikely to watch the soccer portion of the Games. Soccer is not a big enough part of American culture to dictate watching other countries compete, and losing such a vast fanbase is devastating.

The U.S. is good enough to make most international competitions from CONCACAF, yet they failed to do so in one of the biggest competitions in the world.

Don't expect many Americans to tune in to the soccer games this year without the promise of watching Tim Howard, Landon Donovan and the rest of the U.S. team.

Netherlands

After suffering three straight losses and being ousted from the Euro Cup, the Netherlands have something to prove.

These humiliating defeats have brought into question how good they really are, and we would like to see them once again in the Olympics.

Perhaps the reason they struggled in the Euro Cup was because they were placed into the Group of Death, along with Germany, Portugal and Denmark. However, even with that being the case, we would still expect them to record at least one point.

Instead, the Netherlands dropped three straight matches and failed to impress during one of the biggest events of the year.

We need a second-look at the Dutch before we make our judgement of what happened during the Euro Cup, but we won't get that at the Olympics.

Portugal

When a team has the second-best player in the world, is ranked No. 10 in the world and survived the Group of Death in the Euro Cup, they should be a lock for any international competition, right?

Wrong.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal will not be taking part in the festivities in London this year. The 27-year-old would have been one of the three players over the age limit, but he would have been a lock to grab one of those spots.

One of the world's most electric players has helped his team reach international success, and escape the Group of Death in the Euro Cup that included Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal.

This team should not be sitting at home, yet they find themselves unable to compete for a gold medal.

Germany

How can you have an international competition without arguably the best country in the world?

Germany impressed during the Euro Cup, winning all three games in the Group of Death, and then finishing Greece off with a 4-2 victory in the quarterfinals earlier today.

The Germans look ready to win the Euro, as they are the strongest team in the field right now. This may be the best country in the world for soccer at the moment, but they won't even get the chance to prove it during the Olympic Games.

They are currently ranked No. 3 in the world, but winning the Euro would surely put them at No. 1.

With the impressive fashion that this team has been winning in, it's hard to imagine giving another country the gold medal without the Germans in the mix.

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