Football at the 2004 Summer Olympics Football at the 2004 Summer Olympics The football tournament at the 2004 Summer Olympics started on 11 August (two days before the opening ceremony), and ended on 28 August. The tournaments take place every four years, in conjunction with the Summer Olympic Games. The associations affiliated to FIFA are invited to participate with their men's U-23 and women's representative teams. The men's tournament allows up to three overage players to join the U-23 squads. The men's tournament was won by Argentina, coached by Marcelo Bielsa, which held a record of having won every match without conceding a goal in the
1996 Summer Olympics and Toronto at the 96th IOC Session. Atlanta's bid to host the Summer Games that began in 1987 was considered a long-shot, since the U.S. had hosted the Summer Olympics 12 years earlier in Los Angeles. Atlanta's main rivals were Toronto, whose front-running bid that began in 1986 seemed almost sure to succeed after Canada had held a successful 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and Melbourne, Australia, who hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and after Brisbane, Australia's failed bid for the 1992 games (which were awarded to Barcelona) and prior to Sydney, Australia's successful 2000 Summer Olympics bid, they felt