| 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) |
← 1976 1984 → | |
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]
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.
- ^ "Football at the 1980 Moscow Summer Games". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
- ^ "FIFA Technical Report - 1980 Olympics Football Tournament" (PDF). FIFA. 1980. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 December 2011. Retrieved 26 February 2014.