Football at the 1948 Summer Olympics


Football at the 1948 Summer Olympics tournament, won by Sweden, managed by Englishman George Raynor.

Venues

Squads

Final tournament

The tournament began on 26 July 1948 with a preliminary round of two matches: Luxembourg defeating Afghanistan 6–0 and the Netherlands beating Ireland 3–1, with Faas Wilkes scoring two goals for the Dutch. In the first round, which began five days later, the Netherlands played Great Britain at Highbury, Britain prevailing 4–3 after extra time. In goal for Britain was Ronnie Simpson, who would go on to become the oldest Scottish international debutant in history and one of the Lisbon Lions. Yugoslavia and Sweden also went through. France eliminated India.
Sweden's style of play at White Hart Lane attracted much attention. Their forward line contained three exceptional players; one of them Gunnar Gren scored a brace in an easy win. There were two goals, as well, for future FIFA World Cup star Zeljko Cajkovski in Yugoslavia's 6–1 rout of Luxembourg, although they were behind at half-time. South Korea beat Mexico 5–3. Walter Bahr, Ed Souza, Charlie Colombo and John Souza were part of the United States team that lost 9–0 to Italy, conceding five goals at the end of the match when they were down to nine men. They would later participate in the 1950 FIFA World Cup and beat the favourites England in one of the greatest upsets in football history.
In the quarter-finals, Sweden defeated both the South Koreans and the Danes in the semi-final. In the second semi-final, Great Britain played Yugoslavia at Wembley Stadium, going out by three goals to one. 3–1 was also the score in the final in favour of Sweden over Yugoslavia.

Preliminary round

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First round

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Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Bronze medal match

Gold medal match

Team details--

Bracket

Medalists

GoldSilverBronze
Torsten Lindberg
Karl Svensson
Knut Nordahl
Erik Nilsson
Birger Rosengren
Bertil Nordahl
Sune Andersson
Gunnar Gren
Gunnar Nordahl
Henry Carlsson
Nils Liedholm
Börje Leander		Franjo Šoštarić
Miroslav Brozović
Branko Stanković
Zlatko Čajkovski
Miodrag Jovanović
Aleksandar Atanacković
Prvoslav Mihajlović
Rajko Mitić
Franjo Wölfl
Stjepan Bobek
Željko Čajkovski
Kosta Tomašević
Ljubomir Lovrić
Zvonimir Cimermančić
Bernard Vukas		Knud Bastrup-Birk
Hans Colberg
Edvin Hansen
John Hansen
Jørgen W. Hansen
Karl Aage Hansen
Erik Kuld Jensen
Ivan Jensen
Ove Jensen
Hans Viggo Jensen
Per Knudsen
Knud Lundberg
Eigil Nielsen
Knud Børge Overgaard
Poul Petersen
Axel Pilmark
Johannes Pløger
Carl Aage Præst
Holger Seebach
Erling Sørensen
Jørgen Leschly Sørensen
Dion Ørnvold

Statistics

Goalscorers

;7 goals
  • John Hansen
  • Gunnar Nordahl
;5 goals
;4 goals
  • Stjepan Bobek
;3 goals
;2 goals
;1 goal
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