Football at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament

The men's football tournament at the 2016 Summer Olympics was held in Rio de Janeiro and five other cities in Brazil from 4 to 20 August 2016.^[1] It was the 26th edition of the men's Olympic football tournament. Together with the women's competition, the 2016 Summer Olympics football tournament was held in six cities in Brazil, including Olympic host city Rio de Janeiro, which hosted the final at the Maracanã Stadium.^[2] Teams participating in the men's competition were restricted to under-23 players (born on or after 1 January 1993) with a maximum of three overage players allowed.

In March 2016, it was agreed that the competition would be part of IFAB's trial to allow a fourth substitute to be made during extra time.^[3]

Brazil captured their first gold medal after defeating Germany on penalties.^[4] Nigeria won the bronze medal by beating Honduras 3–2.^[5] With the victory, Brazil became the second country after France to win all five FIFA 11-a-side men's titles (FIFA World Cup, FIFA Confederations Cup, FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, and the Olympic football tournament).^{[citation needed]}

Competition schedule

The match schedule of the men's tournament was unveiled on 10 November 2015.^[6]^[7]

Qualification

In addition to host nation Brazil, 15 men's national teams qualified from six separate continental confederations. FIFA ratified the distribution of spots at the executive committee meeting in March 2014.^[8]

^1 Dates and venues are those of final tournaments (or final round of qualification tournaments), various qualification stages may precede matches at these specific venues.
^2 Nations making their Olympic tournament debut

Match officials

On 2 May 2016, FIFA released the list of match referees that would officiate at the Olympics.^[15]

Venues

^ a b c Renovated for the 2014 World Cup
^ Renovated for the 2016 Olympics
^ a b c New stadium for the 2014 World Cup

Training venues

Squads

The men's tournament was an under-23 international tournament (born on or after 1 January 1993), with a maximum of three overage players allowed. Each team had to submit a squad of 18 players, two of whom had to be goalkeepers. Each team might also have a list of four alternate players, who might replace any player in the squad in case of injury during the tournament.^[17]

Draw

The draw for the tournament was held on 14 April 2016, 10:30 BRT (UTC−3), at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.^[18] The 16 teams in the men's tournament were drawn into four groups of four teams.^[19] The teams were seeded into four pots based on their performances in the five previous Olympics (with more recent tournaments weighted higher), plus bonus points awarded to the six confederation qualifying champions (Japan, Nigeria, Mexico, Argentina, Fiji, Sweden).^[20] The hosts Brazil were automatically assigned into position A1. No groups could contain more than one team from the same confederation.^[21]

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals. The rankings of teams in each group were determined as follows:^[17]

Points obtained in all group matches;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Number of goals scored in all group matches;

If two or more teams were equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings were determined as follows:

Points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
Goal difference in the group matches between the teams concerned;
Number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;
Drawing of lots by the FIFA Organising Committee.

Group A

Source: Rio2016 & FIFA
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

4 August 2016