At least we have an Olympic tournament to (hopefully) turn things around.
That's really a Mickey Mouse tournament in footballing terms.
On what basis "Mickey Mouse"? It's a quality tournament, in fact the world u-23 finals with the best u-23 national sides quaifying- or in Europe's case, the best u-21 national sides qualify from the UEFA u-21 Finals (just because they're stubbornly attached to their long tradition of u-21 football) and then they can add players up to age 23 before the finals. And then you have three of the best senior team players from each country. u-21 football is a big deal in Europe, the major youth category used to assess young players for future senior national sides, and synchs easily with u-23 football.
I see the u-23 category as a very useful bridge between u-17 and u-20 international football and the full senior deal. Having full international sides competing at the Olympics is not needed of course as the senior World Cup caters for that.
It's mostly a British prejudice against a tournament they weren't able to enter after 1974 when the FA uniquely refused to acknowledge any distinction between amateur and pro football any more, and to be fair they have a surfeit of football to watch at stadia or on TV or the internet.. Even then about a million Olympic football tickets had already been sold by early May - more than any other sport.
Lots of British fans are seeing it positively on internet forums as a chance to see quality international football in their own cities and regions esp. now England internationals are once more exclusively being played at Wembley.
A positive English assessment of the Olympic Football:
http://calciato.com/2012/04/25/olympic-football-draw-hoped-to-stimulate-ticket-sales/
Brazil are certainly taking it seriously and aren't really making any distintion between their full national side and their Olympic side as they integrate both with the aim of sucess in London and at home in 2014.
See my posts on the Brazil Olympic side's world tour games on ESPN the last month here:
http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forums/all-whites-and-other-nz-international-teams/new-zealand-u-23s-olympics?page=23
In the sense that no-one in the footballing world gives a sweet FA about it (not just the British as you imply). The U23 level is the most ridiculous and unnecessary youth grade level that only exists because of the compromise between FIFA and IOC.
Brazil are using all this build-up not because they care about the Olympics, but because they aren't playing any competetive football at the moment, and they are trying to build a side to win the world cup at home in two years' time. So all this is aimed for the big one two years down the line, Olympics has very little to do with it on its own merit.
