The men's

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

was held in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

and four other cities in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

from 7 to 23 August. Associations affiliated with

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

were invited to enter their men's under-23 teams in regional qualifying competitions, from which 15 teams, plus the host nation, reached the final tournament. Men's teams were allowed to augment their squads with up to three players over the age of 23. For these Games, the men competed in a 16-team tournament. Preliminary matches commenced on 7 August, the day before the Games' opening ceremony. The teams were grouped into four pools of four teams each for a round-robin preliminary round. The top two teams in each pool advanced to an eight-team single-elimination bracket. The tournament was won by

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, who beat

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

1–0 in the final, as part of a record streak of 12 consecutive wins in football competitions at the Summer Olympics (six wins in 2004, six wins in 2008). Despite the absence of an official best player award, the FIFA website highlighted

Lionel Messi Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi (; born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine professional Association football, footballer who plays as a forward (association football), forward for and Captain (association football), captains both Major League Soccer ...

's campaign by stating that he "posed defenders more problems than anyone else in the tournament". Juan Román Riquelme and Javier Mascherano also received special mentions.

Qualification

National Olympic Committee A National Olympic Committee (NOC) is a national constituent of the worldwide Olympic movement. Subject to the controls of the International Olympic Committee, NOCs are responsible for organizing their people's participation in the Olympic Games ...

may enter one men's team in football competitions.

Venues

Six venues were used during the tournament, four of them outside of Beijing at cities around China. Beijing National Stadium hosted the final.

Squads

For the men's tournament, each nation submitted a squad of 18 players, 15 of whom had to be born on or after 1 January 1985, and three of whom could be overage players, by 23 July 2008.Regulations of the Olympic Football Tournaments
A minimum of two goalkeepers (plus one optional alternate goalkeeper) had to be included in the squad.

Match officials

On 22 April 2008,

released the list of match referees that will officiate at the Olympics. All times are

China Standard Time The time in China follows a single standard UTC offset, time offset of UTC+08:00, where Beijing is located, even though the country spans five geographical time zones. It is the largest sovereign nation in the world that officially observes only ...

( UTC+8).

Seeding

The draw for the tournament took place on 20 April 2008. Argentina, the Netherlands, China and Cameroon were seeded for the draw and placed into groups A–D, respectively. The remaining teams were drawn from four pots with teams from the same region kept apart.

Group stage

Group winners and runners-up advanced to the quarter-finals.

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Knockout stage

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Bronze medal match

Gold medal match

Source for cards:

Final ranking

Statistics

Goalscorers

With four goals, Giuseppe Rossi of Italy was the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 75 goals were scored by 53 different players, with only one of them credited as own goal. ;4 goals * Giuseppe Rossi ;3 goals * Mousa Dembélé * Victor Obinna ;2 goals * Sergio Agüero * Ángel Di María * Ezequiel Lavezzi *

* Kevin Mirallas * Diego * Jô *

Thiago Neves Thiago Neves Augusto (born 27 February 1985) is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder. Club career Born in Curitiba, Thiago Neves began his professional career with Paraná aged 20. His performa ...

* Ronaldinho * Rafael Sóbis * Sekou Cissé * Salomon Kalou * Gerald Sibon * Chinedu Obasi * Sacha Kljestan ;1 goal * Lautaro Acosta * Diego Buonanotte * Juan Román Riquelme * Ruben Zadkovich * Laurent Ciman * Faris Haroun * Anderson * Hernanes * Marcelo * Alexandre Pato * Georges Mandjeck * Stéphane Mbia * Dong Fangzhuo * Robert Acquafresca * Sebastian Giovinco * Riccardo Montolivo * Tommaso Rocchi * Gervinho * Yohei Toyoda * Kim Dong-jin * Park Chu-young * Ryan Babel * Otman Bakkal * Jeremy Brockie * Olubayo Adefemi * Victor Anichebe * Peter Odemwingie * Chibuzor Okonkwo * Isaac Promise * Miljan Mrdaković * Slobodan Rajković * Đorđe Rakić * Jozy Altidore * Stuart Holden ;Own goals * Slobodan Rajković (playing against Ivory Coast)

References

* * *

External links

Olympic Football Tournaments Beijing 2008 – Men
at FIFA
FIFA Technical Report
{{DEFAULTSORT:Football At The 2008 Summer Olympics - Men's Tournament

Men A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy. Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the fa ...

2008 Olympics