| Will the same Netherlands team play in the soccer Olympic games as did in the world cup, if they do play?
the teams in the Summer Olympics are now restricted to player age 23 & below, but three player aged over 23 can be included in the squad.
currently, 16 teams will be featured at the Summer Olympics. the host nation will get an automatic entry as host nation while 15 teams will go through a series of qualification matches according to their confederations.
the format at the Olympics is the same as the world cup, where 16 teams will be drawn into 4 groups of 4 teams each. each teams will play each other once, i.e: 3 matches per teams at least. the top two from each group will qualifiy to the quarter-finals. from the quarter-finals up to the Summer Olympics football final, teams will play in a single knock-out format.
ARGENTINA won the last Summer Olympics final staged in Athens Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece in 2004, beating PARAGUAY 1-0 scored by Carlos Tevez. it was ARGENTINA's first ever gold medal & PARAGUAY's first silver medal in the Olympics.
HUNGARY is the most successful football team at the Olympics, when they won 3 football gold medals in 1956, 1964 & 1968. BRAZIL may have won the World Cup 5 times, but they have yet to win a gold medal in Olympics. their best results was 2 silver medals in 1984 & 1988 when they were runners-up to FRANCE & SOVIET UNION respectively.  |