Team GB Women Draw Olympics Warm-up Match

(WFI) Team GB women’s football side drew 0-0 against Sweden today in their first match ever in front of a crowd.

Only a few thousand turned out to watch the historic match, which was screened on BBC1 and the BBC Sport website, providing huge exposure for the women's game in the UK.

This evening, Stuart Pearce's GB men's team take on Brazil as part of the double-header at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough in northeast England.

The women's match was the final warm-up before the squad face New Zealand in Cardiff next Wednesday in what will be the first action of the London 2012 Olympics.

For Pearce's side, it's the first time that Great Britain has fielded a men’s football team in 30 years. Manchester United's Ryan Giggs captains the side.

Hope Powell, coach of the women’s squad, said that the match was a good opportunity for her team to get a feel of what it will be like to play in front of Olympic spectators.

Pearce was cautious of building up expectation ahead of his teams’ Olympic opener against Senegal next Thursday.

He said: "We know we are not where we want to be at the moment.

"We are in this build-up process and the game and the fitness the game will give us will be a fantastic pointer to where we actually are at this moment in time.

"As I said to them when they first walked through the door, we need to be peaking for the Senegal game and we have to accept that we are going to get fitter and stronger day by day.”

The six Olympics venues spread across the UK are: St James’ Park, Newcastle; Old Trafford, Manchester; Hampden Park, Glasgow; the City of Coventry Stadium; the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff and London's Wembley Stadium.

A total of 504 footballers - 288 men and 216 women – will compete in the men's and women's football tournaments. The complete Olympic squad lists for the 16 men's and 12 women's teams are now available on FIFA.com.


By INSIDER's Christian Radnedge

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