Unlike the just concluded FIFA Women's World Cup which will expand to 24 teams when it returns in 2015, the Olympic soccer tournament only allows 12 teams to compete. One of the spots is automatically claimed by the host nation Great Britain, so that leaves eleven spots available for the rest of the world's football playing nations who want to participate in the Olympic tournament that will run from July 25-August 11.
The recent FIFA Women's World Championship tournament acted as the European Olympic qualifier, which is why Germany's upset loss was even more painful to their supporters.
The USA and Canadian women will get a chance to redeem themselves from their disappointments at the FIFA Women's World Cup in Germany by attempting to claim one of the two CONCAFAF spots available for the 2012 London Games for their nation.
The Canadians get the doubleplusgood news that they will be doing so on home soil.
The Canadian Soccer Association recently announced that Vancouver's newly renovated BC Place Stadium will be the host venue for the CONCACAF Olympic women's qualifying tournament, which will take place from January 19-29, 2012.Besides the host and 2010 CONCAFAF champion Canadians, the other nations competing for those two women's Olympic tournament spots are the two time reigning Olympic champion USA, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Canada will also be the host nation for the next FIFA Women's World Cup tournament in 2015 and were ecstatic to hear the news they snagged another high profile international sporting event.
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"British Columbia enjoys a stellar reputation for supporting soccer and hosting major events," said Canadian Soccer Association general secretary Peter Montopoli in a statement. "We saw the success of the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2007 and the enthusiastic fan support that propelled the Vancouver Whitecaps into Major League Soccer. I can think of no better place for our women's national team to win their way to London."At any rate, should be fun to watch and hopefully I will get to see Team USA get over their disappointment at being World Cup runners up by qualifying for London and keeping the drive for an Olympic threepeat alive.