An association football tournament was played as part of the 1988 Summer Olympics in South Korea, featuring 16 men's national teams from six continental confederations. The teams were drawn into four groups of four with each group playing a round-robin tournament. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams advanced to the knockout stage, beginning with the quarter-finals and culminating with the gold medal match at the Seoul Olympic Stadium on 1 October 1988. Before the final match, the Soviet team relocated from the Olympic Village to a Soviet steamship stationed nearby. After winning the gold medal, each player from the Soviet team received 15 thousand dollars from the Soviet government.

Venues

Qualification

The following 16 teams qualified for the 1988 Olympics football tournament:

Participating nations

A total of 314 footballers from 16 participating nations were called up to the Games, with 268 having played in at least one match. Tunisia used the most players of any team throughout their run with 19 out of 20, while China only utilised 14 of their 18-man list.

Match officials

Final tournament

Group stage

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Knockout stage

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Bronze medal match

Gold medal match

Medal summary

Final rankings

Note: The players above the line played at least one game in this tournament, the players below the line were only squad members. Nevertheless, the International Olympic Committee medal database credits them all as medalists.

Goalscorers

With seven goals, Romário of Brazil was the top scorer. In total, 95 goals were scored by 53 different players, with one of them credited as an own goal.