Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament

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.

• Locations are those of final tournaments, various qualification stages may precede matches at these specific venues.

Venues

The tournament was held in six venues across six cities:

• Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
• City of Coventry Stadium, Coventry
• Hampden Park, Glasgow
• Wembley Stadium, London
• Old Trafford, Manchester
• St James' Park, Newcastle

Draw

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

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.

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

Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group E

Group F

Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group F

Group G

Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Group G

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

Ranking of third-placed teams

Knockout stage

Main article: Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament – Knockout stage

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Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Main article: Canada v United States (2012 Summer Olympics)

Bronze medal match

Gold medal match

Statistics

Goalscorers

• Christine Sinclair

• Abby Wambach

• Melissa Tancredi

• Carli Lloyd

• Steph Houghton

• Yūki Ōgimi

• Alex Morgan

• Megan Rapinoe

• Cristiane

• Marta

• Marie-Laure Delie

• Laura Georges

• Wendie Renard

• Élodie Thomis

• Kim Song-hui

• Nilla Fischer

• Lotta Schelin

• Francielle

• Renata Costa

• Gabrielle Onguéné

• Jonelle Filigno

• Diana Matheson

• Camille Catala

• Eugénie Le Sommer

• Gaëtane Thiney

• Jill Scott

• Casey Stoney

• Nahomi Kawasumi

• Aya Miyama

• Shinobu Ohno

• Mizuho Sakaguchi

• Sarah Gregorius

• Rebecca Smith

• Portia Modise

• Lisa Dahlkvist

• Marie Hammarström

• Sofia Jakobsson

• Sydney Leroux

• Ysis Sonkeng (against New Zealand)

Assists

• Alex Morgan

• Louisa Nécib

• Sophie Schmidt

• Élodie Thomis

• Megan Rapinoe

• Melissa Tancredi

• Rhian Wilkinson

• Karen Carney

• Kim Little

• Shinobu Ohno

• Marie Hammarström

• Tobin Heath

• Cristiane

• Francielle

• Adrienne Iven

• Diana Matheson

• Lauren Sesselmann

• Christine Sinclair

• Sonia Bompastor

• Aya Miyama

• Aya Sameshima

• Homare Sawa

• Ria Percival

• Rosie White

• Sofia Jakobsson

• Lina Nilsson

• Caroline Seger

• Sara Thunebro

• Kelley O'Hara

• Heather O'Reilly

• Christie Rampone

• Hope Solo

Discipline

;Red cards

• PRK Choe Mi-gyong

;Match bans

• COL Lady Andrade was banned two matches for violent conduct in punching Abby Wambach.

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 final competition is taken into account but only teams that reach the second stage of the competition are eligible for the Fair Play Award.

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.

quarter-finals group stage

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.

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

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".

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".

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. 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. 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.

References

References

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2. (19 August 2011). "Fixture change in Africa". FIFA.
3. "Canada granted 2012 Olympic Qualifiers". Canadian Soccer Association.
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5. Collett, Mike. (23 April 2012). "Britain, Brazil, Spain seeded". Reuters.
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.
7. (19 April 2012). "Olympic Football Tournament London 2012 – Appointments of Match Officials". Fédération Internationale de Football Association.
8. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120617052253/http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/competition/01/40/35/75/londonolympicgames_matchschedulemix_fifa_06062012.pdf FIFA.com]
9. Borden, Same. (25 July 2012). "Flag Error Delays Start of North Korea-Colombia Match". [[The New York Times]].
10. (2012). "Technical Report and Statistics – Men's and Women's Olympic Football Tournaments London 2012". [[FIFA]].
11. (30 July 2012). "Lady Andrade banned two games". [[ESPN]].
12. Stuart, Gavin. (25 July 2012). "Hampden Olympic blunder sees North Korea delay game after wrong flag raised". stv.tv.
13. "London 2012 'sorry' over North Korea flag mix-up". Channel 4 News.
14. Bowater, Donna. (25 July 2012). "North Korea women footballers protest over flag gaffe". The Daily Telegraph.
15. (27 July 2012). "Olympics in flap over North Korean flag fiasco". Japan Times.
16. (27 July 2012). "Olympics: Apology to N Korea over flag mix-up". Al Jazeera English.
17. (7 August 2012). "Controversy mars Americans' 4–3 win over Canada, but shouldn't detract from a great game". Yahoo! Sports.
18. (7 August 2012). "London 2012 soccer: Controversial call against Canada in U.S. semifinal rarely made". Toronto Star.
19. (9 August 2012). "FIFA to probe Canadian remarks". Japan Times.
20. "Christine Sinclair's suspension wasn't for comments to media". CBC News.
21. Kelly, Cathal. (12 June 2015). "The greatest game of women's soccer ever played". The Globe and Mail.