It has been a great few months for international soccer. With Argentina winning the Copa America 2024 and Spain winning the EUFA European Championship, The 2024 Paris Olympics is upon us. With athletes all over the world descending on Paris for their shot at gold, football will be back in the spotlight as Men's and Women's football kicks off the Olympics before the opening ceremony.
16 countries for Men's football and 12 countries for Women will make their way to Paris for their shot at winning the tournament. Our guide will tell you everything you need to know about Football at the Paris Olympics 2024. So what countries are participating in the Olympics this year? Lets take a look and start with the men's division.
Men's Football - Who's in The Paris Olympics 2024?
The Paris Olympics 2024 football tournament for men will consist of four groups, each having four teams in each group. Each country will face all other countries in their group for a total of three games being played for the group stage for each country.
Once all three matches are played, the top two best countries in each group advance to the Quarter-Finals while the bottom two are eliminated from the competition. A win will net you three points, a draw is one point, and a loss gets you zero points.
Once a team makes it to the knock-out rounds, each team that wins will continue while the losing team is knocked out from the tournament. Once you lose in the playoffs, it is game over. While the schedule for the playoffs will depend on who makes it to the next round, the dates for the playoffs have already been decided. The quarter-finals for the Men's football tournament will take place on Friday, August 2nd. The semi-finals will take place on Monday, August 5th with the final taking place on Friday, August 9th at 6pm Paris local time. The bronze medal match will take place the day before on August 8th at 5pm Paris local time.
Age Matters
The men's tournament at the Olympics is primarily a U-23 competition. Players must be born after January 1st, 2001 in order to qualify to be on the Olympic team for their country. However, each team is allowed three, over 23-year old's to be on the team which is where we will see a few big names come into play. With primarily a younger squad taking center stage at the Olympics, we can expect to see a few new players turn into household names.
Don't expect to see Messi or Mbappe at the tournament. With Messi saying it was too much time away with Copa America and the Olympics so close to each other, and Mbappe not being picked for France's squad, the real spotlight will be on the up and coming talent during this tournament.
VAR will also be used during the tournament and will be under intense scrutiny coming out of the Copa America 2024 tournament. Given some issues that VAR faced, from overturning penalties to issues with offsides, it will be interesting to see the role it will play during the Olympics tournament.
Women's Football - What to Know - Paris Olympics 2024
Women's football will be on display at this year's Olympics. The top five teams, minus England, will be at the tournament. Those teams are Spain, France, Germany, and the USA. Only 12 Women's teams are participating at this year's Olympics, therefore there are three groups, with four countries in each group. Similarly to the Men's tournament, each country will face the other three countries in their group.
What's different however, is how teams advance. Because there are only 12 teams in total, the top two teams from each group will advance but two teams in third place among the three groups will also advance. The scoring will be similar to men's-- three points for a win, one point for a draw, zero points for a loss. In the event of a tie in points, goal differential will come into play and the teams who have a higher score differential will advance to the quarter-finals.
From there, the tournament will host the quarter-finals on Saturday, August 3rd, followed by the semi-finals on Tuesday, October 6th beginning at 6pm local Paris time, concluding with the finals on Saturday, August 10th at 5pm. The women's bronze medal match will take place on Friday, August 9th, right before the Men's gold medal match.
Women's football has seen a surge in popularity in North America in recent years. With the US Women's National Team winning the CONCACAF Women's Tournament in 2022, and winning the World Cup in 2015 and 2019, it will be interesting to see if they can snatch the gold from Spain which holds the number one title in the world at the moment after their World Cup win in 2023.
The Women's tournament at the Olympics do not have an age restriction, which means they will be sending their top-tier athletes. This will surely make for an interesting football tournament as we see top players like Sam Kerr of Australia, Aitana Bonmati of Spain, and Linda Caicedo of Colombia all in attendance, ready to represent their countries.
The Paris 2024 Olympics will be exciting to watch with many teams looking to make history with their newer, up and coming players. While bigger football tournaments are for well established veterans, the Men's tournament at the 2024 Olympics gives us the opportunity to see the newer generation of athletes perform and perhaps pull off something miraculous while fighting to win the gold. As for Women's football, expect to see excitement continue to grow as the best players from around the world bring their mastery and skill to the Olympics in the hope of taking home the gold for their countries.
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