With 12 teams for women and 16 for men, football at the Summer Games will have to start early for scheduling reasons. The same thing happened in London four years ago and there are no surprise elements in a start, earlier than the official Olympic opening ceremony on August 5, 2016. On August 3, the very first action at the Rio Olympics begins with a Group E women’s match between Sweden and South Africa in Olympic Stadium, Rio de Janeiro. Later on the same day, ten remaining teams will also play their first league games at Rio, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte. Men’s tournament will begin on August 4 with the inaugural game between Iraq and Denmark in Group A while Honduras and Algeria play a Group D fixture on the same day.
Besides Formiga, 5-time women’s world player of the year Marta will make her fourth Olympic Games appearance for Brazil, a team which lost to USA twice in the gold medal games at Athens in 2004 and again in Beijing in 2008. That said, USA has had a dominating presence in women’s football, having won the gold on 5 occasions and their only loss came in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where they lost the gold to Norway. Women’s football at Olympics is more exciting than men’s because of its formidable star-cast. Reigning World and Olympic champions USA have seven gold-medal winning players in their line-up and one among them is goalkeeper Hope Solo. Hope has been involved in the last three Olympics and if USA retains their top position at Rio, it will be the fourth time for Hope to win the gold. In their ranks, USA also have Carli Lloyd, who is currently rated as the best woman footballer in the world. The reason for women’s football at Olympic Games being more star-studded than men’s is attributable to no age restrictions for women players; whereas none of men’s national teams are allowed to have more than 3 players over the age of 23.
Women’s Groups
Group E: Brazil, China, Sweden, South Africa
Group F: Canada, Australia, Zimbabwe, Germany
Group G: USA, New Zealand, France, Columbia
Men’s Groups
Group A: Brazil, South Africa, Iraq, Denmark
Group B: Sweden, Colombia, Nigeria, Japan
Group C: Fiji, South Korea, Mexico, Germany
Group D: Honduras, Algeria, Portugal, Argentina