On the morning of July 31, men's soccer ended the group stage after matches in groups A and B.
Men's soccer at the Olympics doesn't usually get too much attention and when it comes to the U23+3 age group, soccer at the Olympics is classified as "second class" compared to events for the national team.
However, at the 2024 Olympics, men's football also has its own interesting points, not only because of the appearance of some famous stars. Accordingly, at the end of the group stage, only 3 matches ended in a draw, of which, only 1 match was a 0-0 draw.
65 goals were scored after 24 matches - an average of 2.71 goals/match, of which, the 3 teams scoring the most goals (with 7 goals) are U23 France, U23 USA (Group A) and U23 Japan (Group D). ). No team did not score.
After 3 matches of the group stage, with the rankings of the teams, 4 pairs of matches in the quarter-finals were also determined. Most notable is the pair U23 France - top of Group A, meeting U23 Argentina - runner-up in Group B.
French and Argentine football have had tensions since the 2022 World Cup final, where Argentina won. Recently, animosity continued to rise when some Argentine national team players sang a song with lyrics widely understood to be racist aimed at French football while celebrating the 2024 Copa America championship.
Therefore, Nicolas Otamendi, Julian Alvarez and the young Argentine players will face a lot of pressure when playing Argentina U23 at Boreaux.
Another very notable match is Japan U23 vs Spain U23 . After Spain U23 unexpectedly lost to Egypt U23 and only had a second-place ticket, it seemed that Japan U23 would calculate to "avoid". However, the Asian representative continued to win against U23 Paraguay to prepare to face difficulties.
The remaining 2 matches, quite interesting, are the confrontation between Africa and America, with U23 Egypt meeting U23 Paraguay and U23 Morocco meeting U23 America.
OLYMPIC MEN'S FOOTBALL 2024 QUARTER-FINAL SCHEDULE (Vietnam time)
20:00 August 2: U23 Morocco - U23 USA
22:00 August 2: U23 Japan - U23 Spain
00:00 August 3: U23 Egypt - U23 Paraguay
02:00 August 3: U23 France - U23 Argentina
