Olympics - Rio 2016 - Day 2

Day 2 - August 4

Men's Football, OK, OK, I give up - Men's soccer started today, and as we all know, nowhere in the world is soccer bigger than in our host country.  Brazil lives, eats, sleeps and breathes the sport.  The are perennially one of the world's powers, the are the host nation, and one of the three most recognizable and talented players in the world is playing in the Olympics - Neymar.  Neymar is so heralded in this country, that the Brazilians would expect him to jump into the pool and beat even Ryan Lochte (I sense a trend starting).

(As an aside, ESPN's reporter and radio personality, a University of Florida alumnus, recently said that he is thankful that the Olympics bring us Ryan Lochte every four years because Lochte is the one Gator - other than Aaron Hernandez - that he will constantly make fun of.  Gutierrez then insisted that he thinks Lochte is really not as dumb as he seems, but that it is part of an act, then followed that up by saying, "but he doesn't have to act very hard".)

Anyway, back to the major story of the day - Men's Soccer.  The host take the field as a medal favorite, and with the backing of the home crowd, the likely favorite to win gold.  They started off against South Africa with ... a 0-0 draw?!  What?  Well perhaps you should know that South Africa played the last 30 minutes (plus stoppage time - which means they played, well, who knows how many minutes) with only 10 players after Mothobi Mvala earned his second yellow card in a five minute span to get sent off.  The vaunted Brazil offense led by Neymar, Gabriel Jesus and Gabigol, although they had their chances, could not find the back of the net.

This is a very inauspicious start for the home team, and although still well in the chase to make the knockout round, was not the start the team, nay country, wanted to see.