Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament

The women's football tournament at the 2012 Summer Olympics was held in London and five other cities in the United Kingdom from 25 July to 9 August. Associations affiliated with FIFA were invited to enter their women's teams in regional qualifying competitions, from which 11 teams, plus the hosts Great Britain reached the final tournament. There are no age restrictions for the players participating in the tournament. It is the first major FIFA affiliated women's tournament to be staged within the United Kingdom, and marked the first time a team representing Great Britain took part in the women's tournament.

2012 Women's Olympic Football Tournament
Tournament details
Host countryUnited Kingdom
Dates25 July – 9 August
Teams12 (from 6 confederations)
Venue(s)6 (in 6 host cities)
Final positions
Champions United States (4th title)
Runners-up Japan
Third place Canada
Fourth place France
Tournament statistics
Matches played26
Goals scored71 (2.73 per match)
Attendance660,986 (25,423 per match)
Top scorer(s) Christine Sinclair (6 goals)
Fair play award United States
Football at the
2012 Summer Olympics
Qualification
menwomen
Tournament
menwomen
Squads
menwomen

Qualifying
Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's qualification

Each National Olympic Committee may enter one women's team in the football tournament.

Means of qualificationDate of completionVenue1BerthsQualified
Host nation2005none1 Great Britain
AFC Preliminary Competition11 September 2011 China[1]2 Japan
 North Korea
CAF Preliminary Competition22 October 2011[2]multiple2 South Africa
 Cameroon
CONCACAF Preliminary Competition29 January 2012 Canada[3]2 United States
 Canada
CONMEBOL Preliminary Competition21 November 2010 Ecuador2 Brazil
 Colombia
OFC Preliminary Competition4 April 2012multiple1 New Zealand
Best UEFA teams in 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup17 July 2011 Germany2 Sweden
 France
TOTAL12
  • ^1 Locations are those of final tournaments, various qualification stages may precede matches at these specific venues.

Draw

The draw for the tournament took place on 24 April 2012.[4] Great Britain, Japan and the United States were seeded for the draw and placed into groups E–G, respectively.[5] The remaining teams were drawn from four pots.[6]

Pot 1 Pot 2 Pot 3 Pot 4

Squads
Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's team squads

The women's tournament is a full international tournament with no restrictions on age. Each nation must submit a squad of 18 players.

Match officials

On 19 April 2012, FIFA released the list of match referees that would officiate at the Olympics.[7]

Group stage

Group winners and runners-up and the two best third-ranked teams advanced to the quarter-finals (also see Tie breakers).

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1).

Group E
Great Britain vs New Zealand
Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group E
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification
1  Great Britain 3 3 0 0 5 0 +5 9 Qualified for the quarter-finals
2  Brazil 3 2 0 1 6 1 +5 6
3  New Zealand 3 1 0 2 3 3 0 3
4  Cameroon 3 0 0 3 1 11 −10 0
Source: IOC
Great Britain 1–0 New Zealand
Houghton  64' Report
Attendance: 24,445[8]
Cameroon 0–5 Brazil
Report Francielle  7'
Costa  10'
Marta  73' (pen.), 88'
Cristiane  78'
Attendance: 30,847[9]
New Zealand 0–1 Brazil
Report Cristiane  86'
Attendance: 30,103[10]
Great Britain 3–0 Cameroon
Stoney  18'
J. Scott  23'
Houghton  82'		 Report
Attendance: 31,141[11]
New Zealand 3–1 Cameroon
Smith  43'
Sonkeng  49' (o.g.)
Gregorius  62'		 Report Onguene  75'
Attendance: 11,425[12]
Great Britain 1–0 Brazil
Houghton  2' Report
Attendance: 70,584[13]
Referee: Carol Anne Chenard (Canada)

Group F
Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group F
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification
1  Sweden 3 1 2 0 6 3 +3 5 Qualified for the quarter-finals
2  Japan 3 1 2 0 2 1 +1 5
3  Canada 3 1 1 1 6 4 +2 4
4  South Africa 3 0 1 2 1 7 −6 1
Source: IOC
Japan 2–1 Canada
Kawasumi  33'
Miyama  44'		 Report Tancredi  55'
Attendance: 14,119[14]
Sweden 4–1 South Africa
Fischer  7'
Dahlkvist  20'
Schelin  21', 63'		 Report
Report		 Modise  60'
Attendance: 18,290[15]
Japan 0–0 Sweden
Report
Report
Attendance: 14,160[16]
Referee: Quetzalli Alvarado (Mexico)
Canada 3–0 South Africa
Tancredi  7'
Sinclair  58', 86'		 Report
Attendance: 14,753[17]
Japan 0–0 South Africa
Report
Attendance: 24,202[18]
Referee: Efthalia Mitsi (Greece)
Canada 2–2 Sweden
Tancredi  43', 84' Report
Report		 Hammarström  14'
Jakobsson  16'
Attendance: 12,719[19]

Group G
Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group G
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification
1  United States 3 3 0 0 8 2 +6 9 Qualified for the quarter-finals
2  France 3 2 0 1 8 4 +4 6
3  North Korea 3 1 0 2 2 6 −4 3
4  Colombia 3 0 0 3 0 6 −6 0
Source: IOC
United States 4–2 France
Wambach  19'
Morgan  32', 66'
Lloyd  56'		 Report Thiney  12'
Delie  14'
Attendance: 18,090[20]
Referee: Sachiko Yamagishi (Japan)
Colombia 0–2 North Korea
Report Kim Song-hui  39', 85'
Attendance: 18,900[21]
Referee: Carol Anne Chenard (Canada)
United States 3–0 Colombia
Rapinoe  33'
Wambach  74'
Lloyd  77'		 Report
Attendance: 11,313[22]
Referee: Efthalia Mitsi (Greece)
France 5–0 North Korea
Georges  45'
Thomis  70'
Delie  71'
Renard  81'
Catala  87'		 Report
Attendance: 11,743[23]
United States 1–0 North Korea
Wambach  25' Report
Attendance: 29,522[24]
France 1–0 Colombia
Thomis  5' Report
Attendance: 13,184[25]
Referee: Quetzalli Alvarado (Mexico)

† Game delayed by one hour, having been originally scheduled at 19:45,[26] due to North Korean protest after accidental use of South Korean flag for North Korea.[27]

Ranking of third-placed teams
Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
 Canada 3 1 1 1 6 4 +2 4
 New Zealand 3 1 0 2 3 3 0 3
 North Korea 3 1 0 2 2 6 −4 3
Source: IOC
Green indicates qualified for the quarter-finals

Knockout stage
Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Knockout stage
  Quarter-finals Semi-finals Gold medal match
                           
  E1  Great Britain 0  
F3  Canada 2  
  F3  Canada 3  
  G1  United States (aet) 4  
G1  United States 2
  E3  New Zealand 0  
    G1  United States 2
  F2  Japan 1
  F1  Sweden 1  
G2  France 2  
  G2  France 1 Bronze medal match
  F2  Japan 2  
E2  Brazil 0 F3  Canada 1
  F2  Japan 2   G2  France 0

Quarter-finals
Sweden 1–2 France
Fischer  18' Report
Report		 Georges  29'
Renard  39'
Attendance: 12,869[28]
United States 2–0 New Zealand
Wambach  27'
Leroux  87'		 Report
Attendance: 10,441[29]
Brazil 0–2 Japan
Report Ōgimi  27'
Ohno  73'
Attendance: 28,528[30]
Great Britain 0–2 Canada
Report Filigno  12'
Sinclair  26'
Attendance: 28,828[31]
Referee: Sachiko Yamagishi (Japan)

Semi-finals
France 1–2 Japan
Le Sommer  76' Report Ōgimi  32'
Sakaguchi  49'
Attendance: 61,482[32]
Referee: Quetzalli Alvarado (Mexico)
Canada 3–4 (a.e.t.) United States
Sinclair  22', 67', 73' Report Rapinoe  54' (cnr.), 70'
Wambach  80' (pen.)
Morgan  120+3'
Attendance: 26,630[33]

Bronze medal match
Canada 1–0 France
Matheson  90+2' Report
Attendance: 12,465[34]

Gold medal match
United States 2–1 Japan
Lloyd  8', 54' Report Ōgimi  63'
Attendance: 80,203[35]

Statistics

Goalscorers

There were 71 goals scored in 26 matches, for an average of 2.73 goals per match.

6 goals

5 goals

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

1 own goal

Source: FIFA[36]

Assists

5 assists

4 assists

3 assists

2 assists

1 assist

Source: FIFA[36]

Discipline
Red cards
Match bans
  • Lady Andrade was banned two matches for violent conduct in punching Abby Wambach.[37]

FIFA Fair Play Award

The United States won the FIFA Fair Play Award, given to the team with the best record of fair play during the tournament. Every match in the tournament was taken into account, though only teams that reached the knockout stage were eligible to win the award.[36]

Pos Team Pts
1  United States 945
2  Sweden 890
3  France 875
4  Japan 874
5  Canada 863
6  New Zealand 844
7  Great Britain 798
8  Brazil 698

Tournament ranking

Per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.

Pos Grp Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Final result
1 G  United States 6 6 0 0 16 6 +10 18 Gold medal
2 F  Japan 6 3 2 1 7 4 +3 11 Silver medal
3 F  Canada 6 3 1 2 12 8 +4 10 Bronze medal
4 G  France 6 3 0 3 11 8 +3 9 Fourth place
5 E  Great Britain (H) 4 3 0 1 5 2 +3 9 Eliminated in
quarter-finals
6 E  Brazil 4 2 0 2 6 3 +3 6
7 F  Sweden 4 1 2 1 7 5 +2 5
8 E  New Zealand 4 1 0 3 3 5 −2 3
9 G  North Korea 3 1 0 2 2 6 −4 3 Eliminated in
group stage
10 F  South Africa 3 0 1 2 1 7 −6 1
11 G  Colombia 3 0 0 3 0 6 −6 0
12 E  Cameroon 3 0 0 3 1 11 −10 0
Source: FIFA[36]
(H) Host.

Notable events and controversies

North Korea flag confusion

In the first day of the Olympic events on 25 July, the match between DPR Korea and Colombia was delayed by a little over an hour because the flag of South Korea was mistakenly displayed on the electronic scoreboard in Hampden Park. The North Korean team walked off the pitch in protest at seeing the South Korean flag displayed by their names and refused to warm-up whilst the flag was being displayed. They also objected to the South Korean flag being displayed above the stadium, even though the flags of all the competing countries were being displayed. The game then commenced after a delay and rectification of the error.[38]

Andy Mitchell, venue media manager for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), read out a LOCOG statement shortly afterwards:[39][40]

"Today ahead of the Women’s football match at Hampden Park, the South Korean flag was shown on a big screen video package instead of the North Korean flag. Clearly that is a mistake, we will apologise to the team and the National Olympic Committee and steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again".

LOCOG's statement had to be reissued because it failed to use the nations' official titles, "Republic of Korea" and "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".[41]

British Prime Minister David Cameron added that it was an "honest mistake" and efforts would be undertaken to ensure such a mishap does not recur. However, North Korean manager Sin Ui-gun expressed reservations about whether the incident was a mistake of intention and said: "We were angry because our players were introduced as if they were from South Korea, which may affect us greatly as you may know. Our team was not going to participate unless the problem was solved perfectly and fortunately some time later, the broadcasting was corrected and shown again live so we made up our mind to participate and go on with the match. If this matter cannot be solved, we thought going on was nonsense. Winning the game cannot compensate for that thing".[42]

Canada–United States semi-final

During the semi-final match between Canada and the United States, a time-wasting call was made against the Canadian goalkeeper, Erin McLeod, when she held the ball longer than the allowed six seconds. This violation is intended to be used during instances of time-wasting and is called in international play, but very rarely.[43] As a result, the American side was awarded an indirect free-kick in the box. On the ensuing play, Canada was penalized for a handball in the penalty box, with the American team being awarded a penalty kick, which Abby Wambach converted to tie the game at 3–3. The Americans went on to win the match in extra time, advancing to the gold medal game.[44][45] After the match, Canada forward Christine Sinclair stated, "the ref decided the result before the game started." FIFA responded by stating that the refereeing decisions were correct and saying it was considering disciplinary action against Sinclair, but that any disciplinary action would be postponed until after the end of the tournament.[46][47][48]

See also

References
  1. "China to host women's Olympic qualifiers". Asian Football Confederation. 3 March 2011. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  2. "Fixture change in Africa". FIFA. 19 August 2011. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  3. "Canada granted 2012 Olympic Qualifiers". CanadaSoccer.com. Canadian Soccer Association. Archived from the original on 11 November 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  4. "Here we go: Team GB fixture dates confirmed and London 2012 Football tickets to go back on sale". London 2012. 10 November 2011. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  5. Collett, Mike (23 April 2012). "Britain, Brazil, Spain seeded". Reuters. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  6. Kelso, Paul (23 April 2012). "London 2012 Olympics: Team GB men's side avoid Brazil and Spain in group stage of football tournament". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  7. "Olympic Football Tournament London 2012 – Appointments of Match Officials" (PDF). FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 19 April 2012. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
  8. "Great Britain – New Zealand". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 25 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  9. "Cameroon – Brazil". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 25 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  10. "New Zealand – Brazil". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 28 July 2012. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
  11. "Great Britain – Cameroon". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 28 July 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  12. "New Zealand – Cameroon". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  13. "Great Britain – Brazil". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  14. "Japan – Canada". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 25 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  15. "Sweden – South Africa". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 25 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  16. "Japan – Sweden". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 28 July 2012. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
  17. "Canada – South Africa". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 28 July 2012. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
  18. "Japan – South Africa". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  19. "Canada – Sweden". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  20. "United States – France". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 25 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  21. "Colombia – North Korea". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 25 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  22. "United States – Colombia". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 28 July 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  23. "France – North Korea". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 28 July 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  24. "United States – North Korea". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  25. "France – Colombia". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  26. https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/competition/01/40/35/75/londonolympicgames_matchschedulemix_fifa_06062012.pdf
  27. Borden, Same (25 July 2012). "Flag Error Delays Start of North Korea-Colombia Match". New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  28. "Sweden – France". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 3 August 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  29. "United States – New Zealand". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 3 August 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  30. "Brazil – Japan". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 3 August 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  31. "Great Britain – Canada". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 3 August 2012. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  32. "France – Japan". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 6 August 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  33. "Canada – United States". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 6 August 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  34. "Canada – France". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 9 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  35. "United States – Japan". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 9 August 2012. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  36. Technical Report and Statistics – Men's and Women's Olympic Football Tournaments London 2012 (PDF). FIFA. Zürich. 2012. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  37. "Lady Andrade banned two games". ESPN. 30 July 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  38. Stuart, Gavin (25 July 2012). "Hampden Olympic blunder sees North Korea delay game after wrong flag raised". stv.tv. Archived from the original on 27 July 2012. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  39. "London 2012 'sorry' over North Korea flag mix-up". Channel 4 News. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
  40. Bowater, Donna (25 July 2012). "North Korea women footballers protest over flag gaffe". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  41. "Olympics in flap over North Korean flag fiasco". Japan Times. Associated Press. 27 July 2012. p. 4.
  42. "Olympics: Apology to N Korea over flag mix-up". Al Jazeera English. 27 July 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  43. http://thechronicleherald.ca/olympics2012/124836-controversial-women-s-soccer-call-continues-to-baffle-experts
  44. "Controversy mars Americans' 4–3 win over Canada, but shouldn't detract from a great game". Yahoo! Sports. 7 August 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  45. "London 2012 soccer: Controversial call against Canada in U.S. semifinal rarely made". Toronto Star. 7 August 2012.
  46. "FIFA to probe Canadian remarks". Japan Times. Associated Press. 9 August 2012. p. 17.
  47. "Christine Sinclair's suspension wasn't for comments to media". CBC News.
  48. Kelly, Cathal (12 June 2015). "The greatest game of women's soccer ever played". The Globe and Mail.
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