By David Owen
April 17 – The schedule for the men’s and women’s Olympic football tournaments next year in Japan has been published, with the sport getting up and running as usual well before the official opening ceremony for the Games.
By David Owen
February 13 – FIFA has yet to decide whether to use goal-line technology at next year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic football tournament.
By David Owen
July 11 – The city of Kashima was endorsed as a Tokyo 2020 football venue at Monday’s meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board.
September 19 – Brazil kept up their Olympic momentum with Gold and Bronze medals in the Rio Paralympic football tournaments. Their success in the five-a-side final at the Olympic Tennis Centre was their fourth successive win.
August 23 – Nigerian football has been plunged into fresh controversy – and this time after celebrating a bronze medal in the Olympic men’s football tournament.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 22 – England manager Sam Allardyce has backed calls for an all-British team in future Olympic football tournaments after the short-sighted and backward decision not to enter teams for Rio.
By Samindra Kunti in Rio de Janeiro
August 22 – Brazil won their desperately desired gold medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games after a combustive and compelling 120 minutes of box-to-box football in the final at the Maracana against Germany. In a storyline that not even the most clichéd of writers would have dared to write, it was Neymar who delivered salvation from the penalty spot with the fifth and final kick of the shoot out.
August 22 – Germany’s women won their first Olympic gold medal beating surprise finalists Sweden 2-1 in a tense final at the Maracanã. Canada broke Brazilian hearts beating hosts Brazil 2-1 in the bronze medal play-off.
By Samindra Kunti in Rio de Janeiro
August 19 – Brazil has at last taken discernable steps to footballing redemption – at least on the pitch. On Saturday Brazil will meet Germany in the gold medal match of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, a chance to avenge the unforgiving 7-1 semi-finals defeat at the 2014 World Cup.
By Samindra Kunti in Rio de Janeiro
August 19 – Sweden and Germany will dispute the Olympic women’s gold medal match at the Maracana, but the team that is only in Brazil because the Brits stunningly couldn’t agree to play together, has split opinion over their unadventurous style of play.
August 18 – From despair to jubilation. Neymar scored the fastest goal in Olympic football history after just 14 seconds to set up a 6-0 demolition of Honduras in the men’s semi-final of the Olympic tournament.
August 17 – While the Brazilian crowd booed French Olympic silver medal winning pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie at the presentation ceremony where Brazilian Thiago Braz da Silva collected gold, across town an almost full capacity crowd Maracana were stunned into silence when Sweden’s Lisa Dahlkvist slotted the final penalty in the semi-final shoot-out that sent the hosts to bronze medal play-off in Sao Paulo.
By Samindra Kunti
August 15 – The delirious scenes over the weekend as the Brazilian national women’s and men’s teams progressed to the semi-final brackets of their Olympic football tournaments revealed a nation desperate for success in their chosen sport, one that they know has been their national showcase to the rest of world. Olympic football in South America is important, in Brazil, at these games, it has almost reached defining importance.
August 15 – Last to turn up at the men’s Olympic football party in Brazil, could the Nigerians also be the last to leave? From being stranded in the US where plane tickets for the next leg of their journey to the tournament had not been paid, the African nation have fought their way through to the semi-finals and a match-up against Germany.
August 15 – It was the shock result of the tournament, The US women’s team, so dominant in the women’s game as current World and Olympic champions, crashed out on penalties in the quarter finals to Sweden who only scraped into the knockout rounds as third place qualifier in their group.