Football (soccer) at the 2008 Summer Olympics

A soccer player about to take a free kick

Football (soccer) pictogram Football (soccer) at the 2008 Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing and several other cities in the People's Republic of China from August 6 to August 23. Associations affiliated with FIFA are invited to send their full women's national teams and men's U-23 teams to participate. Men's teams are allowed to augment their squad with three players over the age of 23.

For these games, the men will compete in a 16-team tournament, and the women will compete in a 12-team tournament. Football preliminaries actually commence two days before the Opening Ceremony of the Games on August 8.

Venues

Aside from the host city Beijing, football matches are scheduled to take place in four other cities:

Beijing: Beijing National Stadium
Beijing: Workers' Stadium
Qinghuangdao: Qinhuangdao Olympic Sports Centre Stadium
Shanghai: Shanghai Stadium
Shenyang: Shenyang Olympic Stadium
Tianjin: Tianjin Olympic Centre Stadium

Squads

For the men's tournament, each nation must submit a squad of 18 players, 15 of which must be born on or after 1 January 1985, and 3 of which can be older "overage" players, by 23 July 2008. A minimum of two goalkeepers (plus one optional alternate goalkeeper) must be included in the squad.

The women's tournament on the other hand is a full international tournament with no restrictions on age. Each nation must submit a squad of 18 players by 23 July 2008. A minimum of two goalkeepers (plus one optional alternate goalkeeper) must be included in the squad.

Participating nations

Men

Group A

Argentina
Australia
Côte d'Ivoire
Serbia

Group B

Japan
Netherlands
Nigeria
USA

Group C

Belgium
Brazil
China PR
New Zealand

Group D

Cameroon
Honduras
Italy
Korea Republic

Women

Group A

Argentina
Canada
China PR
Sweden

Group B

Brazil

Germany
Korea DPR
Nigeria

Group C

Japan
New Zealand
Norway
USA

References

Regulations of the Olympic Football Tournaments
"Sports Competition Schedule". BOCOG
"Athletics". (Sports). International Olympic Committee
"Programme of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, Beijing 2008" (pdf). International Olympic Committee.
Federation Internationale de Football Association
RSSSF

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Nicolae Sfetcu