The football tournament at the 1980 Summer Olympics started on 20 July and ended on 2 August. Only one event, the men's tournament, was contested. Seven qualified countries did not participate, joining the American-led boycott in protest of the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.^[1]

Quick Facts Tournament details, Host country ...

1980 Men's Olympic football tournament

Tournament details
Host country	Soviet Union
Dates	20 July – 2 August 1980
Teams	16 (from 5 confederations)
Venue(s)	5 (in 4 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Czechoslovakia (1st title)
Runners-up	East Germany
Third place	Soviet Union
Fourth place	Yugoslavia
Tournament statistics
Matches played	32
Goals scored	82 (2.56 per match)
Attendance	1,821,624 (56,926 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Sergey Andreyev (5 goals)
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Sixteen teams were divided into four groups:

• Group A (USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, Zambia)
• Group B (Colombia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Czechoslovakia)
• Group C (Algeria, Spain, GDR, Syria)
• Group D (Costa Rica, Finland, Iraq, Yugoslavia)

In the technical report following the competition, FIFA reported that: "Compared with the 1979 World Youth Tournament in Japan and the 1978 World Cup finals in Argentina, the standard of football at the Olympic Football Tournament was generally of an inferior quality,".^[2]

The tournament was primarily hosted by Moscow and Leningrad in the Russian SFSR, with some group stage games in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR and Minsk, Byelorussian SSR.

More information Moscow, Minsk ...

Moscow
Central Lenin Stadium			Dynamo Stadium
Capacity: 91,251			Capacity: 50,475
Minsk		Leningrad		Kiev
Dinamo Stadium		Kirov Stadium		Republican Stadium
Capacity: 50,125		Capacity: 74,000		Capacity: 100,169

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The football tournament was the most attended event on these Olympics: 1,821,624 spectators watched 32 matches of it at the stadiums.

Due to the American-led boycott, countries (in brackets) who qualified did not enter the final tournament. Spain sent a team under the IOC flag. The following 16 teams qualified for the 1980 Olympics football tournament:

With five goals, Sergey Andreyev of Soviet Union was the top scorer of the tournament. In total, 82 goals were scored by 52 different players, with only one of them credited as own goal.

5 goals

• Sergey Andreyev

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

Own goals

• Mahboub Mubarak (playing against Nigeria)

Below the final ranking after the end of the tournament.^[3]

More information Pos, Team ...

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	6	4	2	0	10	1	+9	10
2	East Germany (GDR)	6	4	1	1	12	2	+10	9
3	Soviet Union (URS)	6	5	0	1	19	3	+16	10
4	Yugoslavia (YUG)	6	3	1	2	9	7	+2	7
5	Kuwait (KUW)	4	1	2	1	5	4	+1	4
6	Iraq (IRQ)	4	1	2	1	4	5	−1	4
7	Cuba (CUB)	4	2	0	2	3	12	−9	4
8	Algeria (ALG)	4	1	1	2	4	5	−1	3
9	Finland (FIN)	3	1	1	1	3	2	+1	3
10	Spain (ESP)	3	0	3	0	2	2	0	3
11	Colombia (COL)	3	1	1	1	2	4	−2	3
12	Venezuela (VEN)	3	1	0	2	3	7	−4	2
13	Nigeria (NGR)	3	0	1	2	2	5	−3	1
14	Syria (SYR)	3	0	1	2	0	8	−8	1
15	Zambia (ZAM)	3	0	0	3	2	6	−4	0
16	Costa Rica (CRC)	3	0	0	3	2	9	−7	0

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