Imagine you are a young, male footballer - under 23, in fact - and you have been invited to play for Team GB at the London 2012 Games in what will be the first British representation in the Olympic football tournament since 1960.

But there are problems.

First problem. Your club is planning to whisk you and your team-mates away pre-season – that is, during the Olympic competition which starts on July 25 - for an all-expenses paid working holiday in south-east Asia, where your coiffed profile, and that of your compadres, will generate many millions of pounds worth of revenue for your employers so that they may service a debt which is bigger than planet earth.

Second problem. You are Scottish. This is not an intrinsic problem, of course. But in context it is, because although the Scottish Football Association have agreed, between gritted teeth, and with the memory still vivid of Lionel Messi's court action against his club to oblige them to let him represent Argentina at the Olympics, that they can't actually stop any individual player who wants to step up and represent the Union flag at the home Olympics, they still hate the idea. And anyone playing the token Scot so that the Sassenachs can feel good about their little English British team will be regarded with about as much goodwill as the signatories of the Act of Union.

So, two big problems. But if anybody could fix them, you would think, it is the man who was today officially named as coach to the men's Team GB players in London 2012 - Stuart Pearce, whose nickname of Psycho, which accompanied him through an illustrious playing career with Coventry City, Nottingham Forest, West Ham United, Manchester City and England, tells you a little about the intensity of his commitment to whatever cause he was fighting for.

It is tempting, therefore, to imagine Pearce – a man whose surname, as I have just randomly discovered, is but one consonant away from his antithesis - persuading young players to embrace the Olympic spirit through the following means: grabbing them by the collar and inflicting upon them a rant of eye-bulging urgency with an accompanying suggestion about what might happen if the result should turn out, at the end of the day, and when all has been bellowed and done, to be anything other than the right one.

But of course Pearce no longer rampages gloriously across the playing fields of England admonishing his less thorough and strenuous team-mates of their failings. The man who once advertised his services as an electrician in the Nottingham Forest programme has since acquainted himself with the complex wiring which confronts any manager of men.



In recent years too, as coach to the England under-21 team, he has encountered the managerial cold shoulder when it comes to requesting players for his squad, a shoulder offered recently by Manchester United's manager Sir Alex Ferguson following a request for the services of the young forward Danny Welbeck – whose recent treble pay rise is unlikely to make him any less difficult to tear away from Old Trafford in the near future.

Psycho has had to get smarter to get his results – and to develop a more thoughtful approach which was evident at today's press conference within the dark and labyrinthine innards of Wembley Stadium.

He spoke of the way in which he and his female counterpart for London 2012, Hope Powell, had bought into the Olympic ideal. Both were adamant, for instance, that wherever possible, Team GB's footballers would reside in the Olympic Village.

Having insisted that players from all the Home nations had equal chances to force their way into his squad - "I'm certainly not coming into this job looking to only select England players" – he then dealt with a classic double question as one of the attending media followed up.

Did he then feel obliged to pick Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish players in his squad?

"I don't feel obliged to pick anybody, even Englishmen" he replied.

So it was possible, our questioner continued, that there would be no Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish players in the squad?

Woo-oo, woo-oo, danger, danger...!!

"It's possible there will be no English in the squad," replied Psycho with a little grin. We knew it wasn't that likely either – but his footwork was immaculate.


Pearce was similarly adept in facing the question of whether David Beckham (pictured above with Pearce), who is looking increasingly unlikely to figure in the Euro 2012 England squad, would have his frequently expressed wish of representing Britain at the Olympics.

"I've no idea as yet," Pearce responded matter-of-factly. "To be honest with you, I've not seen him play recently – he's a bit too old to play for the under-21s, so he's not been on my radar..."

So what tactics will the Artist formerly known as Psycho deploy as he attempts to assemble a winning squad for 2012. In his own phrase – "common sense and dialogue."

It's not swashbuckling stuff. It's not scoring that penalty against Spain in Euro 96. But it is what is required, and there is no other way.

His suggestion, half serious, that inclusion in Team GB - which is scheduled to play a couple of friendlies before the Games begin, one of which will probably be a double-header with the women's Team GB side – will mean young players are effectively getting some high profile pre-season training may not cut too much ice.

Pearce's trump card, however, could yet be to inspire some of the idealism in his prospective young selections that clearly operates in his own heart. He really does seem to carry a special feeling for what he calls this "one-off opportunity". And when he says that, if he were still playing, he would jump at the chance, you absolutely believe him.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.