| Tourney Name: | Women's Olympic Football Tournament |
| Year: | 2016 |
| Size: | 150 |
| Country: | Brazil |
| Dates: | 3–19 August |
| Num Teams: | 12 |
| Confederations: | 6 |
| Venues: | 7 |
| Cities: | 6 |
| Count: | 1 |
| Matches: | 26 |
| Goals: | 66 |
| Prevseason: | 2012 |
| Nextseason: | 2020 |
The women's football tournament at the 2016 Summer Olympics was held from 3 to 19 August 2016.[1] It was the 6th edition of the women's Olympic football tournament. Together with the men'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] There were no player age restrictions for teams participating in the women's competition.
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] The United States, gold medalists for the previous three Games, were eliminated by a penalty shoot-out defeat against Sweden in the quarter-finals. This marked the first time that the United States did not progress to the semi-finals of a major international tournament. For the first time since the introduction of the women's tournament in 1996, three matches in the knockout stage were decided by a penalty shoot-out (two quarter-finals and one semi-final).
Germany won their first gold medal by defeating Sweden 2–1 in the final.[4] [5] Canada won bronze after beating host Brazil with the same scoreline in the bronze medal game.[6]
The match schedule of the women's tournament was unveiled on 10 November 2015.[7] [8]
| G | Group stage | ¼ | Quarter-finals | SF | Semi-finals | B | Bronze medal match | F | Gold medal match |
| Wed 3 | Thu 4 | Fri 5 | Sat 6 | Sun 7 | Mon 8 | Tue 9 | Wed 10 | Thu 11 | Fri 12 | Sat 13 | Sun 14 | Mon 15 | Tue 16 | Wed 17 | Thu 18 | Fri 19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | G | G | ¼ | ½ | B | F | ||||||||||||
See main article: Football at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's qualification.
In addition to host nation Brazil, 11 women's national teams qualified from six separate continental confederations. FIFA ratified the distribution of spots at the Executive Committee meeting in March 2014.[9]
| Means of qualification | Dates | Venue | Berths | Qualified | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Host country | 2 October 2009 | Denmark | 1 | |||
| 2014 Copa América[10] | 11–28 September 2014 |  Ecuador | 1 | |||
| 2015 FIFA World Cup[11] (for UEFA eligible teams) | 6 June – 5 July 2015 |  Canada | 2 | |||
| 2015 CAF Olympic Qualifying Tournament[12] | 2–18 October 2015 | Various (home and away) | 2 | |||
| 2016 OFC Olympic Qualifying Tournament[13] | 23 January 2016 |  Papua New Guinea | 1 | |||
| 2016 CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Championship[14] | 10–21 February 2016 |  United States | 2 | |||
| 2016 AFC Olympic Qualifying Tournament[15] | 29 February – 9 March 2016 |  Japan[16] | 2 | |||
| 2016 UEFA Olympic Qualifying Tournament[17] | 2–9 March 2016 |  Netherlands | 1 | |||
| Total | 12 | |||||
The tournament was held in seven venues across six cities:
See main article: Football at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's team squads. The women's tournament was a full international tournament with no restrictions on age. Each team had to submit a squad of 18 players, two of whom must be goalkeepers. Each team might also have a list of four alternate players, who would replace any player in the squad in case of injury during the tournament.[18]
On 2 May 2016, FIFA released the list of match referees that would officiate at the Olympics.[19]
| Confederation | Referee | Assistant referees |
|---|---|---|
| AFC | Rita Gani (Malaysia) | Cui Yongmei (China PR) Naomi Teshirogi (Japan) |
| Ri Hyang-ok (North Korea) | Allyson Flynn (Australia) Hong Kum-nyo (North Korea) | |
| CAF | Gladys Lengwe (Zambia) | Bernadettar Kwimbira (Malawi) Souad Oulhaj (Morocco) |
| CONCACAF | Carol Anne Chenard (Canada) | Marie-Josée Charbonneau (Canada) Suzanne Morisset (Canada) |
| Lucila Venegas (Mexico) | Enedina Caudillo (Mexico) Mayte Chávez (Mexico) | |
| CONMEBOL | Olga Miranda (Paraguay) | Mariana de Almeida (Argentina) Yoleida Lara (Venezuela) |
| Claudia Umpiérrez (Uruguay) | Neuza Back (Brazil) Loreto Toloza (Chile) | |
| OFC | Anna-Marie Keighley (New Zealand) | Sarah Jones (New Zealand) Lata Kaumatule (Tonga) |
| UEFA | Teodora Albon (Romania) | Petruța Iugulescu (Romania) Mária Súkeníková (Slovakia) |
| Stéphanie Frappart (France) | Manuela Nicolosi (France) Yolanda Parga Rodríguez (Spain) | |
| Kateryna Monzul (Ukraine) | Nataliya Rachynska (Ukraine) Sanja Rođak-Karšić (Croatia) | |
| Esther Staubli (Switzerland) | Chrysoula Kourompylia (Greece) Lucie Ratajová (Czech Republic) |
| Confederation | Referee | |
|---|---|---|
| CONCACAF | Melissa Borjas (Honduras) | |
| CONMEBOL | María Carvajal (Chile) |
The draw for the tournament was held on 14 April 2016, 10:30 BRT (UTC−3), at the Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro.[20] The 12 teams in the women's tournament were drawn into three groups of four teams.[21] The teams were seeded into four pots based on the FIFA Ranking of March 2016 (in brackets in the table).[22] The hosts Brazil were automatically assigned into position E1. No groups can contain more than one team from the same confederation.[23]
| width=25% | Pot 1 | width=25% | Pot 2 | width=25% | Pot 3 | width=25% | Pot 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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The top two teams of each group and the two best third-placed teams advanced to the quarter-finals. The rankings of teams in each group were determined as follows:[18]
If two or more teams were equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings were determined as follows:
The groups were denoted as groups E, F and G to avoid confusion with the groups of the men's tournament which used designations A–D.
See main article: Football at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group E. --------
See main article: Football at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group F. --------
See main article: Football at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group G. --------
See main article: Football at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Knockout stage. In the knockout stages, if a match is level at the end of normal playing time, extra time is played (two periods of 15 minutes each) and followed, if necessary, by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner.[18]
On 18 March 2016, the FIFA Executive Committee agreed that the competition would be part of the International Football Association Board's trial to allow a fourth substitute to be made during extra time.[3]
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Sweden won the FIFA Fair Play Award, given to the team with the best record of fair play during the tournament. Every match in the final competition is taken into account but only teams that reach the second stage of the competition are eligible for the Fair Play Trophy.
| Team | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 872 | ||
| 2 | 859 | ||
| 3 | 853 | ||
| 4 | 846 | ||
| 5 | 840 | ||
| 6 | 838 | ||
| 7 | 830 | ||
| 8 | 768 |