Football at The 1928 Summer Olympics - Final Tournament

Final Tournament

Perhaps the first round draw favoured the South Americans. Uruguay immediately dispatched the hosts, the Netherlands, 2-0 in front of 40,000 people with none of the controversy that had surrounded their previous encounter at the 1924 Summer Olympics. The game was calmly controlled by Jean Langenus, a performance which was recognised. Meanwhile the Argentinians had little difficulty against the United States winning 11-2.

Elsewhere Germany had performed strongly but in the quarter-final Germany were put to the sword by the Uruguayans who beat them 4-1. In another quarter-final the Italians 'enjoyed' another of their close encounters with Spain. In the first game they reached a curious tie with the Spanish fighting back from a half time deficit to force a replay. In the replay three days later the Azzurri simply overran their opponents scoring 4 without response before the break. Virgilio Levratto's brace confirmed their superiority; once again Rangone kept faith in a largely unchanged team. Spain, on the other hand, had gambled by making five changes to Italy's two. Clearly less was more.

Portugal, after convincing wins over Chile (4-2) and, the wildly inconsistent Yugoslavia (2-1) lost, dysmally, to Egypt 2-1; the African side repeating their customary Olympic shock to advance to a semi-final tie against Argentina. Egypt's 3-0 defeat of Hungary in 1924 would continue to sustain them well into the 1930s; a reason, if one were needed, for their entry into the 1934 FIFA World Cup.