Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson said
he doesn't like the idea of his players in the UK's Olympic team
because they need their rest.
THE Manchester United boss is unenthusiastic about his star players appearing for the UK's Olympic team.
Sir Alex Ferguson is not keen about the prospect of some of his
best players appearing for a Great Britain team in next summer's London
Olympics.
The English Football Association on Thursday appointed
England under-21 manager Stuart Pearce as head coach of the Olympic
team, giving him free rein to choose his side from across Britain.
Uncertainty
remains over whether Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish players will be
made available, however, because of opposition from those respective
associations to the Olympic team.
However, with the majority of an
Olympic squad required to be under-23, it has been assumed that many of
Manchester United's promising youngsters will figure prominently in
Pearce's thinking.
In what is certain to be the first of many such pronouncements by the
United manager, Ferguson has set out his case for why playing in the
tournament, just weeks after the 2012 European Championship, and a short
time before the start of the 2012-13 Premier League season, is a bad
idea.
"I'm over the moon," smiled Ferguson, sarcastically, when asked of his view of the situation.
"I
think this is actually spurred out of the fact that, at the last
Olympics, Argentina and Nigeria played their strongest teams, I think
that's where it comes from, really.
"It's given an opening for the
British Olympic team to start thinking the same way. But we have a
different type of football to abroad, as everyone knows.
"The intensity of the English game is second to none, it's an exhausting, exacting season.
"I
keep saying, this is why I never expect England to do well at a
European Championship or World Cup, because players have been through a
hell of a season. It's very difficult to get the bar up again once you
have been through a season in the English game.
"It is exactly the
same with the Olympics. I don't see how they could possibly get players
to raise the bar after the season they have had in our game.
"They
need their rest, need their pre-season training, need their recovery
and recuperation from injuries, small injuries they have carried right
through the season.
"I'm sure it won't make any difference to them, what I am saying, but it is a fact."
Ferguson,
meanwhile, has re-assessed his view of the red card received by his
defender Nemanja Vidic in the midweek Champions League victory at
Romanian team Otelul Galati.
The Serbian international was shown a
straight red card by German referee Felix Brych for a high challenge on
Gabriel Giurgiu, a decision that Ferguson disagreed with at the time.
"At the time, I thought it was really, really harsh," said Ferguson. "I thought it was a bad decision.
"But
when you view it, his foot is raised and, in the context of today,
particularly German football, referees are very, very strict. I wasn't
surprised when I saw a video replay of it. The foot was high, without
making any contact."
Source: Daily Telegraph
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