By the time the Men\u2019s Olympic Tournament London 2012 came around, Ryan Giggs\u2019 legacy as an all-time British football great was already secure. At that stage, his personal honours list included a record 12 Premier League titles \u2013 he would make it 13 the following year \u2013 as well as four FA Cups and two UEFA Champions League titles.<\/p>\n
There was one glaring omission from his glittering CV, however. The Manchester United legend had not yet graced a major international football tournament, with his native Wales having failed to qualify for a FIFA World Cup\u2122 or UEFA European Championship since he made his debut in 1991.<\/p>\n
When it was announced Great Britain would enter a men\u2019s football team at the London Games, then, Giggs\u2019 potential inclusion became a major talking point. Sure enough, he was named as one of Team GB\u2019s three overage players and was handed the captain\u2019s armband. Aged 38, his selection was far from just sentimental \u2013 in the 2011\/12 season, Giggs had played 33 games for United, scoring four times and providing ten assists.<\/p>\n
Giggs led out Team GB in their opening game at Old Trafford, a stadium his sustained brilliance had lit up for more than two decades, as the host nation battled out a 1-1 draw with Senegal.<\/p>\n
A clash with United Arab Emirates at Wembley Stadium followed \u2013 and it was here Giggs made Olympic history. With just over a quarter-of-an-hour played, he expertly headed home a cross from Craig Bellamy to become the oldest-ever scorer at the Games. At 38 years and 243 days, he broke the record held by Egypt’s Hussein Hegazi, who was aged 37 years and 225 days when he netted at Paris 1924.<\/p>\n
Team GB would go on to win that match and their final group game against Uruguay. Their medal dreams were dashed, however, when they lost to Korea Republic on the penalties in the quarter-finals, despite Giggs netting in the shootout.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the Welshman had seized his chance to shine on the global international stage \u2013 and written another chapter in a remarkable career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By the time the Men\u2019s Olympic Tournament London 2012 came around, Ryan Giggs\u2019 legacy as an all-time British football great was already secure. At that stage, his personal honours list included a record 12 Premier League titles \u2013 he would make it 13 the following year \u2013 as well as four FA Cups and two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1007982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-1007981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1007981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1007981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1007981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1007981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}