The gerries certainly used to give blighty a beating in the olympic medal count but recently that has changed around, I would guess due to the olympics being held in london, when a country hosts an event like this they always pump a lot of money into sports development in the many years leading up to it, so it is no surprise to see blighty beating the gerries in 2008 before the london olympics, these tings are very well planned out and cost a lot :S.... Britain certainly seems to have a very good system right now due to this funding so the rest of europe(bar the russian dopers) are on the back foot for sure and it will be up to them to catch up !....

anway as for the world cup... Lets say messi puts in a performance like maradona did in the 86 final, aka getting totally marked out the game by an intellignet team but still putting up a very good assist that is a big help in winning the world cup... How does this effect the way people see messi? A world cup winner but wasnt the real deciding factor in teh final but certainly had a big hand in it ? all hypothetical questions(I also think the gerries will bash them!)