Football at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's European Qualifiers

Men's European Qualifier

Tournament details
Teams	27 (from 1 confederation)
← 1984 1992 →

The European Qualifiers for men's football competitions at the 1988 Summer Olympics to be held in Seoul. The tournament took place from 10 September 1986 to 31 May 1988 including a preliminary round. At the end, five countries qualified including West Germany, Italy, Sweden, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia.

The draw for the tournament took place on 27 May 1986 in Mexico City just before the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico.^[1] Out of 34 European football nations at the time in tournament participated only 27 with five allowing for qualification to the Summer Olympics football tournament.^[1] All participants were split in five groups of five teams with winners of each qualify for the Olympics. Four teams were contesting two berths in two of five groups.

Seven football nations that did not participate included four team of British islands (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) that refused to form the unified Great Britain team required by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Malta (never fielded its team previously), Luxembourg (not fielding in 1980s), and Albania (political restrictions since 1972).^[1]

Turkey and Eastern Bloc nations such as East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union, that boycotted the 1984 Olympics football tournament in Los Angeles, returned to the Olympic competition.^[2][3]

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D	Group E
West Germany	Italy	Sweden	Soviet Union	Yugoslavia
Denmark Poland Romania Greece	East Germany Portugal Netherlands Iceland	Hungary Spain Republic of Ireland France	Bulgaria Switzerland Norway Turkey	Czechoslovakia Belgium Austria Finland
Cyprus			Liechtenstein

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Cyprus	1–4[4]	Greece	1–2	0–2

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	West Germany	8	5	2	1	16	4	+12	12	1988 Summer Olympics		—	1–1	5–1	3–0	3–0
2	Denmark	8	5	1	2	23	5	+18	11			0–1	—	3–0	8–0	4–0
3	Poland	8	4	2	2	11	10	+1	10			1–1	2–0*	—	1–0	5–1
4	Romania	8	2	1	5	5	17	−12	5			1–0	1–2	0–0	—	0–1
5	Greece	8	1	0	7	4	23	−19	2			0–2	0–5	0–1	2–3	—

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Italy	8	5	3	0	11	1	+10	13	1988 Summer Olympics		—	1–1	1–0	3–0	2–0
2	East Germany	8	4	3	1	12	5	+7	11			0–0	—	3–0	4–2	3–0
3	Portugal	8	2	4	2	4	6	−2	8			0–0	0–0	—	1–1	2–1
4	Netherlands	8	1	3	4	6	12	−6	5			0–1	0–1	0–0	—	1–0
5	Iceland	8	1	1	6	5	14	−9	3			0–3	2–0	0–1	2–2	—

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Sweden	8	6	1	1	13	6	+7	13	1988 Summer Olympics		—	1–0	2–0	1–0	4–2
2	Hungary	8	5	1	2	13	8	+5	11			2–1	—	2–1	3–1	2–2
3	Spain	8	1	4	3	9	12	−3	6			1–1	1–0	—	2–2	1–2
4	Republic of Ireland	8	1	3	4	10	12	−2	5			0–1	1–2	2–2	—	3–0
5	France	8	1	3	4	9	16	−7	5			1–2	0–2	1–1	1–1	—

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Liechtenstein	0–19[4]	Switzerland	0–10	0–9

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Soviet Union	8	6	2	0	12	2	+10	14	1988 Summer Olympics
2	Bulgaria	8	4	2	2	13	5	+8	10
3	Switzerland	8	2	3	3	8	10	−2	7
4	Norway	8	0	5	3	1	7	−6	5
5	Turkey	8	1	2	5	5	15	−10	4

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Yugoslavia	8	6	1	1	17	5	+12	13	1988 Summer Olympics
2	Czechoslovakia	8	6	0	2	10	3	+7	12
3	Belgium	8	3	1	4	8	13	−5	7
4	Austria	8	2	0	6	7	11	−4	4
5	Finland	8	2	0	6	5	15	−10	4

7 goals

5 goals

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals