The 1996 Men's Olympic Football Tournament, played as part of the 1996 Summer Olympics, was hosted in Birmingham, Alabama, Washington, D.C., Orlando, Florida, Miami, Florida and Athens, Georgia. From 1992 onwards, male competitors should be under 23 years old and starting from this tournament, a maximum of three over-23 players are allowed per squad. The tournament featured 16 national teams from the six continental confederations. The 16 teams were 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 Sanford Stadium on August 3, 1996.
Nigeria defeated Argentina 3–2 in the final for their first gold medal.
Competition schedule The match schedule of the tournament.
20 Sat21 Sun22 Mon23 Tue24 Wed25 Thu26 Fri27 Sat28 Sun29 Lun30 Tue31 Wed1 Thu2 Fri3 SatG G G G GG ¼ ¼ ½ ½ B F
Venues Athens, Georgia Birmingham, Alabama Miami, Florida Sanford Stadium Legion Field Orange Bowl Capacity: 86,100 Capacity: 81,700 Capacity: 74,476 Orlando, Florida Washington, D.C. Citrus Bowl Robert F. Kennedy Stadium Capacity: 65,000 Capacity: 56,500
Qualification The following 16 teams qualified for the 1996 Olympic men's football tournament: Means of qualification Berths Qualified Host nation 1 1996 CONCACAF Preliminary Competition 1 (winner) 1996 AFC Preliminary Competition 3 (winner) (runner-up) (third-place) 1996 CAF Preliminary Competition 3 1996 CONMEBOL Pre-Olympic Tournament 2 (winner) (runner-up) CONCACAF–OFC play-off 1 1996 UEFA European Under-21 Championship 5 (winner) (runner-up) (third-place) (5th) (6th) Total 16
Match officials
+ Referees Confederation Referee Male officials AFC Omer Al Mehannah (Saudi Arabia) Pirom Un-prasert (Thailand) CAF Gamal Al-Ghandour (Egypt) Lucien Bouchardeau (Niger) CONCACAF Benito Archundia (Mexico) Esfandiar Baharmast (United States) CONMEBOL Antônio Pereira (Brazil) Roberto Ruscio (Argentina) OFC Eddie Lennie (Australia) UEFA Pierluigi Collina (Italy) Hugh Dallas (Great Britain) José María García-Aranda (Spain) + Fourth officials Confederation Referee Female officials UEFA Ingrid Jonsson (Sweden)
+ Assistant referees Confederation Assistant referee Male officials AFC Jeon Young-hyun (South Korea) Mohamed Al-Musawi (Oman) CAF Dramane Dante (Mali) Amir Osman Mohamed Hamid (Sudan) CONCACAF Peter Kelly (Trinidad and Tobago) Luis Fernando Torres Zúñiga (Costa Rica) CONMEBOL Jorge Luis Arango (Colombia) Carlos Velázquez (Uruguay) OFC Lencie Fred (Vanuatu) UEFA Yuri Dupanov (Belarus) Heiner Neuenstein (Germany) Akif Uğurdur (Turkey) Female officials CONCACAF María del Socorro Rodríguez (Mexico) UEFA Gitte Holm (Denmark) Nelly Viennot (France)
Seeding The draw for the tournament took place on 5 May 1996. The United States, Spain, Ghana and Brazil were seeded for the draw and placed into groups A–D, respectively. The remaining teams, excluding those from Europe, were drawn away from teams of the same region.
Pot 1: Host, Top-Seeded teams from Africa, Europe and South AmericaPot 2: Asia, Non-top seeded team from South AmericaPot 3: Non-top seeded teams from EuropePot 4: Non-top seeded teams from Africa and North America, Inter-continental playoff winner1 2
1 1996 CONCACAF Pre-Olympic Tournament Champions, team not determined at time of draw.
2 CONCACAF–OFC play-off winner, team not determined at time of draw.
Squads
Group stage Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Knockout stage
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Bronze medal match
Gold medal match
GK 18 Joseph Dosu RB 17 Mobi Oparaku CB 5 Uche OkechukwuCB 3 Taribo WestLB 2 Celestine BabayaroDM 15 Sunday Oliseh RM 7 Tijani BabangidaLM 11 Victor Ikpeba AM 10 Jay-Jay Okocha CF 14 Daniel AmokachiCF 4 Nwankwo Kanu (c)Substitutes:MF 13 Garba Lawal MF 8 Wilson Oruma MF 6 Emmanuel Amunike Manager: Jo Bonfrère
GK 12 Pablo CavalleroRB 4 Javier ZanettiCB 2 Roberto AyalaCB 6 Roberto Sensini LB 3 José ChamotDM 5 Matías AlmeydaRM 10 Ariel OrtegaCM 15 Christian Bassedas (c)LM 11 Hugo Morales CF 7 Claudio LópezCF 9 Hernán CrespoSubstitutes:MF 8 Diego Simeone Manager:Daniel Passarella
Final ranking
Goalscorers With six goals, Hernán Crespo of Argentina and Bebeto of Brazil are the top scorers of the tournament. In total, 90 goals were scored by 55 different players, with four of them credited as own goals.
6 goals Hernán Crespo Bebeto 5 goals Ronaldo 4 goals Marco Branca 3 goals Flávio Conceição Florian Maurice Nwankwo Kanu 2 goals
Claudio López Ariel Ortega Aurelio Vidmar Christian Saba Csaba Madar Masakiyo Maezono Celestine Babayaro Jay-Jay Okocha Afonso Martins Óscar Raúl Brian Maisonneuve
1 goal
Gustavo Adrián López Diego Simeone Peter Tsekenis Mark Viduka Juninho Sylvain Legwinski Robert Pirès Antoine Sibierski Felix Aboagye Augustine Ahinful Charles Akonnor Ebenezer Hagan Tamás Sándor Teruyoshi Itō Kenichi Uemura José Manuel Abundis Francisco Palencia Daniel Amokachi Emmanuel Amunike Victor Ikpeba Paulo Alves José Calado Capucho Nuno Gomes Mohammed Al-Khilaiwi Fuad Anwar Amin Lee Ki-hyung Yoon Jong-hwan Santi Mohamed Mkacher Jovan Kirovski Claudio Reyna
Own goals Roberto Carlos (playing against Nigeria) Afo Dodoo (playing against Brazil) Tadahiro Akiba (playing against Nigeria) Agustín Aranzábal (playing against Argentina)
References
External links
Olympic Football Tournaments Atlanta 1996 – Men, FIFA.com RSSSF Summary FIFA Technical Report (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3) and (Part 4)