Football at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament
International football competition / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Football at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The men's football tournament at the 2008 Summer Olympics was held in Beijing and four other cities in the People's Republic of China from 7 to 23 August. Associations affiliated with FIFA 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.
Tournament details | |
---|---|
Host country | China |
Dates | 7–23 August |
Teams | 16 (from 6 confederations) |
Venue(s) | 6 (in 5 host cities) |
Final positions | |
Champions | Argentina (2nd title) |
Runners-up | Nigeria |
Third place | Brazil |
Fourth place | Belgium |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 32 |
Goals scored | 75 (2.34 per match) |
Attendance | 1,404,254 (43,883 per match) |
Top scorer(s) | Giuseppe Rossi (4 goals) |
← 2004 2012 → |
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, who beat 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's campaign by stating that he "posed defenders more problems than anyone else in the tournament".[1] Juan Román Riquelme and Javier Mascherano also received special mentions.[2]