| Tourney Name: | Men's Olympic Football Tournament |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Size: | 150 |
| Country: | United States |
| Dates: | July 20 – August 3 |
| Num Teams: | 16 |
| Confederations: | 6 |
| Venues: | 5 |
| Cities: | 5 |
| Count: | 1 |
| Matches: | 32 |
| Goals: | 90 |
| Top Scorer: |  Bebeto  Hernán Crespo (6 goals each) |
| Prevseason: | 1992 |
| Nextseason: | 2000 |
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.[1] [2] [3] [4] 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.[5]
The match schedule of the tournament.[6]
| 20 Sat | 21 Sun | 22 Mon | 23 Tue | 24 Wed | 25 Thu | 26 Fri | 27 Sat | 28 Sun | 29 Lun | 30 Tue | 31 Wed | 1 Thu | 2 Fri | 3 Sat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | G | G | G | G | G | ¼ | ¼ | ½ | ½ | B | F |
| 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 | |||||
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) | |
| 3 | (winner) (runner-up) (third-place) | ||
| 3 | |||
| 2 | (winner) (runner-up) | ||
| 1 | |||
| 5 | (winner) (runner-up) (third-place) (5th) (6th) | ||
| Total | 16 |
| 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) | ||
| Confederation | Referee | |
|---|---|---|
| Female officials | ||
| UEFA | Ingrid Jonsson (Sweden) | |
| 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) | ||
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.
| width=20% | Pot 1: Host, Top-Seeded teams from Africa, Europe and South America | width=25% | Pot 2: Asia, Non-top seeded team from South America | width=25% | Pot 3: Non-top seeded teams from Europe | width=25% | Pot 4: Non-top seeded teams from Africa and North America, Inter-continental playoff winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
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.
See main article: Football at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Men's team squads.
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| GK | 18 | |||
| RB | 17 | |||
| CB | 5 | Uche Okechukwu | ||
| CB | 3 | Taribo West | ||
| LB | 2 | Celestine Babayaro | ||
| DM | 15 | |||
| RM | 7 | Tijani Babangida | ||
| LM | 11 | |||
| AM | 10 | |||
| CF | 14 | Daniel Amokachi | ||
| CF | 4 | Nwankwo Kanu (c) | ||
| Substitutes: | ||||
| MF | 13 | |||
| MF | 8 | |||
| MF | 6 | |||
| Manager: | ||||
| Jo Bonfrère | ||||
| GK | 12 | Pablo Cavallero | ||
| RB | 4 | Javier Zanetti | ||
| CB | 2 | Roberto Ayala | ||
| CB | 6 | |||
| LB | 3 | José Chamot | ||
| DM | 5 | Matías Almeyda | ||
| RM | 10 | Ariel Ortega | ||
| CM | 15 | Christian Bassedas (c) | ||
| LM | 11 | |||
| CF | 7 | Claudio López | ||
| CF | 9 | Hernán Crespo | ||
| Substitutes: | ||||
| MF | 8 | |||
| Manager: | ||||
| Daniel Passarella | ||||
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.
Claudio López Ariel Ortega
Aurelio Vidmar
Christian Saba
Csaba Madar
Masakiyo Maezono
Celestine Babayaro Jay-Jay Okocha
Brian Maisonneuve 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
Mohammed Al-Khilaiwi Fuad Anwar Amin
Lee Ki-hyung Yoon Jong-hwan
Mohamed Mkacher Jovan Kirovski Claudio Reyna Roberto Carlos (playing against Nigeria) Afo Dodoo (playing against Brazil) Tadahiro Akiba (playing against Nigeria)