Stuart Pearce eyeing Olympic gold

 
2 August 2012

Stuart Pearce saw his Great Britain side take a step closer to an Olympic medal by beating Uruguay last night but insists gold is the only colour he is planning for.

The 1-0 win over the south Americans at the Millennium Stadium, courtesy of Daniel Sturridge's second goal of the tournament, saw Great Britain top Group A and set up a last-eight clash with South Korea in Cardiff on Saturday.

And Pearce knows victory there will put he and his squad within sight of a podium finish.

He said: "All the teams in the quarter-finals know they have two shots at getting a medal if you get to the semi-finals.

"If you are unsuccessful in the semi-finals you get the shot at the bronze so the importance of the next game is pretty high."

But Pearce only has sights for winning the competition and, after ensuring Uruguay follow fellow pre-tournament favourites Spain out of the tournament, believes his side might be coming to the boil, right on cue for a potential last-four clash with Brazil.

"We have only ever planned to win the tournament," he said.

"Brazil going into the tournament were vast favourites and their performance when we played them in Middlesbrough echoed those thoughts and they have done very well so far.

"But football is quite funny, when you get games coming thick and fast, every three days, the mental and physical side plays a big part and from here on in there will be some sides flat to the boards physically, so you can't pre-judge results at this stage."

Pearce also praised the fans in Cardiff, who respected the singing of God Save the Queen and were vociferous in their backing of the home side.

Elsewhere in the tournament, Mexico topped Group B with a 1-0 win over Switzerland in Cardiff, while Gabon and South Korea played out a goalless draw at Wembley.

Brazil ended Group C with a 100 per cent record by beating New Zealand 3-0, with Egypt's 3-1 win over Belarus giving the African nation second place and a quarter-final berth.

The games in Group D between Japan and Honduras and Spain and Morocco ended goalless, with Japan and Honduras progressing.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in