Football at the 1988 Summer Olympics

Football at the 1988 Summer Olympics

Tournament details
Host country	South Korea
Dates	17 September – 1 October
Teams	16 (from 6 confederations)
Venue(s)	6 (in 5 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Soviet Union
Runners-up	Brazil
Third place	West Germany
Fourth place	Italy
Tournament statistics
Matches played	32
Goals scored	95 (2.97 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Romário (7 goals)
← 1984 1992 →

A 16 teams football tournament was played as part of the 1988 Summer Olympics. The tournament featured men's national teams from six continental confederations. The 16 teams are drawn into four groups of four and each group played a round-robin tournament. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams advanced to the knockout stage, beginning with the quarter-finals and culminating with the gold medal match at the Seoul Olympic Stadium on 1 October 1988.^[1][2]

The USSR team purposefully did not use some strong players in the FIFA World Cup 1986 and UEFA Euro 1988, so that they would be able to participate in the Olympic tournament. During the Olympics, the Soviets primarily stayed on a yacht rather than in the Olympic Village. After winning the gold medal, each player from the Soviet team received 15 thousand dollars from the Soviet government.^[3]

Venues[]

Seoul		Busan
Olympic Stadium	Dongdaemun Stadium	Busan Stadium
Capacity: 69,950	Capacity: 26,383	Capacity: 30,000
Daegu	Daejeon	Gwangju
Daegu Stadium	Daejeon Stadium	Gwangju Stadium
Capacity: 23,278	Capacity: 30,000	Capacity: 30,000
Olympic Stadium Busan Stadium Daegu Stadium Daejeon Stadium Dongdaemun Stadium Gwangju Stadium

Medal summary[]

Gold	Silver	Bronze
Soviet Union (URS) Aleksandr Borodyuk Oleksiy Cherednyk Igor Dobrovolski Sergei Fokin Sergei Gorlukovich Arvydas Janonis Gela Ketashvili Dmitry Kharin Yevgeni Kuznetsov Viktor Losev Volodymyr Lyuty Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko Arminas Narbekovas Igor Ponomarev Yury Savichev Igor Sklyarov Vladimir Tatarchuk Yevgeny Yarovenko Alexei Prudnikov Vadym Tyshchenko	Brazil (BRA) Ademir Aloísio Andrade Batista Bebeto Careca André Cruz Edmar Geovani João Paulo Jorginho Milton Neto Romário Cláudio Taffarel Luiz Carlos Winck Ricardo Gomes Mazinho Valdo Filho Zé Carlos	West Germany (FRG) Rudi Bommer Holger Fach Wolfgang Funkel Armin Görtz Roland Grahammer Thomas Häßler Thomas Hörster Olaf Janßen Uwe Kamps Gerhard Kleppinger Jürgen Klinsmann Frank Mill Karl-Heinz Riedle Christian Schreier Michael Schulz Ralf Sievers Fritz Walter Wolfram Wuttke Oliver Reck Gunnar Sauer

Note: The players above the line played at least one game in this tournament, the players below the line were only squad members. Nevertheless, the International Olympic Committee medal database credits them all as medalists.

Qualification[]

The following 16 teams qualified for the 1988 Olympics football tournament:

Means of qualification	Berths	Qualified
Host nation	1	South Korea
AFC Preliminary Competition	2	China PR  Iraq
CAF Preliminary Competition	3	Nigeria  Tunisia  Zambia
CONCACAF Preliminary Competition	2	Guatemala  United States
1987 CONMEBOL Pre-Olympic Tournament	2	Brazil (winner)  Argentina (runner-up)
OFC Preliminary Competition	1	Australia
UEFA Preliminary Competition	5	Italy  Sweden  Soviet Union  West Germany  Yugoslavia
Total	16

Participating nations[]

Each country was allowed to enter a team of 20 players and they all were eligible for participation. A total number of 314 footballers were entered.

A total of 268(*) footballers from 16 nations competed at the Seoul Games:

•  Argentina (16 – from a squad of 19)
•  Australia (16 – from a squad of 20)
•  Brazil (16 – from a squad of 20)
•  China (14 – from a squad of 18)
•  Guatemala (17 – from a squad of 19)
•  Iraq (16 – from a squad of 20)
•  Italy (18 – from a squad of 20)
•  South Korea (16 – from a squad of 20)
•  Nigeria (17 – from a squad of 20)
•  Sweden (17 – from a squad of 20)
•  Tunisia (19 – from a squad of 20)
•  United States (16 – from a squad of 20)
•  Soviet Union (18 – from a squad of 20)
•  West Germany (18 – from a squad of 20)
•  Yugoslavia (16 – from a squad of 18)
•  Zambia (18 – from a squad of 20)

(*) NOTE: Players who participated in at least one match.

Final tournament[]

First round[]

Group A[]

Pos	Team v t	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Sweden	3	2	1	0	6	3	+3	5
2	West Germany	3	2	0	1	8	3	+5	4
3	Tunisia	3	0	2	1	3	6	−3	2
4	China PR	3	0	1	2	0	5	−5	1

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Group B[]

Pos	Team v t	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Zambia	3	2	1	0	10	2	+8	5
2	Italy	3	2	0	1	7	6	+1	4
3	Iraq	3	1	1	1	5	4	+1	3
4	Guatemala	3	0	0	3	2	12	−10	0

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Group C[]

Pos	Team v t	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Soviet Union	3	2	1	0	6	3	+3	5
2	Argentina	3	1	1	1	4	4	0	3
3	South Korea	3	0	2	1	1	2	−1	2
4	United States	3	0	2	1	3	5	−2	2

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Group D[]

Pos	Team v t	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Brazil	3	3	0	0	9	1	+8	6
2	Australia	3	2	0	1	2	3	−1	4
3	Yugoslavia	3	1	0	2	4	4	0	2
4	Nigeria	3	0	0	3	1	8	−7	0

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Knockout stage[]

	Quarter-finals				Semi-finals				Gold medal match
	25 September – Daegu
	Sweden	1
					27 September – Busan
	Italy (aet)	2
					Italy	2
	25 September – Busan
					Soviet Union (aet)	3
	Soviet Union	3
									1 October – Seoul
	Australia	0
									Soviet Union (aet)	2
	25 September – Gwangju
									Brazil	1
	Zambia	0
					27 September – Seoul
	West Germany	4
					West Germany	1 (2)
	25 September – Seoul
					Brazil (aet)	1 (3)			Bronze medal match
	Brazil	1
									30 September – Seoul
	Argentina	0
									Italy	0
									West Germany	3

Quarter-finals[]

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Semi-finals[]

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Bronze medal match[]

Gold medal match[]

showTeam details

Soviet Union GK 1 Dmitry Kharin DF 2 Gela Ketashvili DF 12 Yevgeny Yarovenko DF 18 Sergei Gorlukovich DF 17 Viktor Losev MF 7 Yevgeni Kuznetsov MF 10 Igor Dobrovolski MF 15 Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko MF 14 Volodymyr Tatarchuk FW 11 Volodymyr Lyuty FW 20 Arminas Narbekovas Substitutes: DF 3 Igor Sklyarov FW 19 Yury Savichev Manager: Anatoliy Byshovets Brazil GK 1 Cláudio Taffarel DF 14 Luiz Carlos DF 15 Aloísio DF 13 André Cruz DF 2 Jorginho MF 19 Andrade MF 16 Milton MF 17 Neto FW 10 Careca II FW 20 Bebeto FW 11 Romário Substitutes: FW 9 Edmar FW 18 Joao Paulo Manager: Carlos Alberto Silva

Final ranking[]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Soviet Union (URS)	6	5	1	0	14	6	+8	11
2	Brazil (BRA)	6	4	1	1	12	4	+8	9
3	West Germany (FRG)	6	4	1	1	16	4	+12	9
4	Italy (ITA)	6	3	0	3	11	13	−2	6
5	Zambia (ZAM)	4	2	1	1	10	6	+4	5
6	Sweden (SWE)	4	2	1	1	7	5	+2	5
7	Australia (AUS)	4	2	0	2	2	6	−4	4
8	Argentina (ARG)	4	1	1	2	4	5	−1	3
9	Iraq (IRQ)	3	1	1	1	5	4	+1	3
10	Yugoslavia (YUG)	3	1	0	2	4	4	0	2
11	South Korea (KOR)	3	0	2	1	1	2	−1	2
12	United States (USA)	3	0	2	1	3	5	−2	2
13	Tunisia (TUN)	3	0	2	1	3	6	−3	2
14	China (CHN)	3	0	1	2	0	5	−5	1
15	Nigeria (NGR)	3	0	0	3	1	8	−7	0
16	Guatemala (GUA)	3	0	0	3	2	12	−10	0

Venues[]

• Olympic Stadium – Seoul
• Dongdaemun Stadium – Seoul
• Busan Gudeok Stadium – Busan
• Daegu Civic Stadium – Daegu
• Daejeon Hanbat Stadium – Daejeon
• Gwangju Mudeung Stadium – Gwangju

Match officials[]

Goalscorers[]

With seven goals, Romário of Brazil was the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 95 goals were scored by 53 different players, with only one of them credited as own goal.

7 goals

• Romário

6 goals

• Igor Dobrovolski
• Kalusha Bwalya

5 goals

• Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko

4 goals

• Jürgen Klinsmann

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

Own goal

• Rocael Mazariegos (playing against Iraq)

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Association football at the 1988 Summer Olympics.

• Olympic Football Tournament Seoul 1988, FIFA.com
• RSSSF Summary
• FIFA Technical Report (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3) and (Part 4)