Paris 2024 football draws: Four Olympic football group stage matches that were good enough to be finals
While the Olympic gold medal will be the ultimate goal for footballers at Paris 2024 that doesn’t always mean all the best matches take place in the final.
At 20:00 CET on Wednesday 20 March, the draw for the men’s and women’s Olympic football tournaments take place in Saint-Denis, Paris, where the groups will be set for the upcoming Games.
To mark the occasion, Olympics.com looks back at four group-stage matches that came close to being as memorable as Olympic gold medal matches.
Spain 3-2 Australia, Atlanta 1996 - men’s football tournament
Australia could barely have had more of a difficult task to qualify from the group stage of the Atlanta 1996 Olympics. After a 2-0 defeat to France and a narrow 2-1 victory over Saudi Arabia, the Aussies needed a win against Spain, the defending Olympic champions who had triumphed on home soil four years before at Barcelona 1992.
If Spain were taking the challenge lightly, that would soon change as the men in yellow raced into a 2-0 lead within the first quarter of an hour.
Aurelio Vidmar was the goalscorer on both occasions, stunning the crowd as the Australian bench celebrated with leaps of joy and, perhaps, a smidgen of disbelief.
However, what followed was one of the greatest comebacks in Olympic football history. In the 40th minute, future Real Madrid legend Raúl whipped in an unstoppable free-kick from the edge of the penalty box to bring the scoreline back to 2-1.
Then just when it looked as if Australia would hang on for victory, Santi levelled for the champions in the 86th minute before Raúl struck again at the death to send Spain through to the quarter-finals.
Netherlands 10-3 Zambia, Tokyo 2020 - women’s football tournament
Zambia entered the Tokyo 2020 women’s football tournament as underdogs but, while they exited the competition after the group stage, that didn’t stop them being involved in one of the most memorable games of the last Olympic Games.
In a 13-goal thriller, the Netherlands ran out 10-3 winners with current Arsenal star Vivianne Miedema scoring four goals. And while Zambia were made to pay a price for a porous defence, a new star was unveiled in the shape of Barbra Banda who scored a hat-trick on her Olympic debut.
Banda followed up this performance with a second hat-trick in the very next match against People’s Republic of China to become the first woman in Olympic history to score back-to-back hat-tricks.
For Maidema, this was also the beginning of a record-breaking scoring run that included eight goals in the group stage and two in the quarter-finals where the Nethlerlands bowed out in a penalties loss to the USA.
Hungary 6-5 Yugoslavia, Tokyo 1964 - men’s football tournament
Another thrilling match that produced a huge amount of goals was Hungary’s clash with Yugoslavia at Tokyo 1964. Hungary entered the game having beaten Morocco 6-0 in their opening fixture, while Yugoslavia had beaten the same opponents 3-1 to put themselves in the top two positions of a three-team group.
However, nobody could have expected what happened in this game.
Yugoslavia’s Ivan Osim opened the scoring in minute one, but two goals in quick succession from Tibor Csernai put Hungary back in control as they led 2-1 in only the 11th minute.
With just 20 minutes on the clock, there had already been five goals scored, with Hungary holding a narrow 3-2 advantage.
By the time the half-time whistle blew, the score was 5-4 to Hungary. And while the second half did not live up to the goal-fest in the first, a fourth goal from Hungary’s Csernai in the 63rd minute and an 82nd-minute strike from Yugoslavia’s Osim saw the match end 6-5.
Hungary went on to win the gold medal but nothing could compare to this back-and-forth Olympic thriller.
Lindsay Tarpley celebrates scoring against Brazil in the Athens 2004 women's Olympics football final
USA 2-1 Brazil, Athens 2004 - women’s football tournament
One group stage match wasn’t just good enough to be a final - it ended up being the final.
When the USA lined up against Brazil in Group G of the Olympic football tournament in Athens, little did they know they would meet just 12 days later in a battle for the gold medal.
Both the US and Brazil had won their tournament openers and headed into their matchup as the top two teams in the group.
In the end, it was the United States who laid down a marker, with second-half goals from legends Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach giving them a 2-0 victory.
The final between the two teams turned out to be a much closer affair with Lindsay Tarpley opening the scoring for the USA in the 39th minute before Brazil’s Pretinha levelled in the 73rd.
With the two teams almost impossible to separate as they headed into extra time, Wambach once again proved herself to be the USA’s saviour, scoring in the 112th minute to win her nation the gold medal.