hosted preliminary matches at the Estádio OlímpicoJoão Havelange and the women's and men's final at the Maracanã Stadium on 19 and 20 August. Apart from Rio de Janeiro the five other cities were: São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Salvador, and Manaus, which were all host cities during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The final choice of venues was announced by FIFA on 16 March 2015.
Training venues
Qualification
Men's qualification
In addition to host nation Brazil, 15 men's national teams qualified from six separate continental confederations. FIFA ratified the distribution of spots at the Executive Committee meeting in March 2014.
Dates and venues are those of final tournaments, various qualification stages may precede matches at these specific venues.
In addition to host nation Brazil, 11 women's national teams qualified from six separate continental confederations. FIFA ratified the distribution of spots at the Executive Committee meeting in March 2014. Most continents use specific Olympic qualifying tournaments to allocate their spots, but two use slightly different procedures. CONMEBOL used the Copa América to determine its Olympic entrant. Because the Olympic host, Brazil, won the Copa América, the runner-up qualified for the Olympics. UEFA generally uses the World Cup to determine its Olympic entrants. The top 3 finishers at the World Cup, excluding England, qualified. When multiple European teams were eliminated in the same round and this results in a tie for an Olympic qualifying spot, an Olympic Qualifying Tournament was used to break the tie. For these Games, Germany and France both reached at least the quarterfinals and thus obtained qualification spots. The next best finish for European teams was a four-way tie among the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, which each lost in the round of 16. Those four teams competed in a separate tournament to break that tie, won by Sweden.
Dates and venues are those of final tournaments, various qualification stages may precede matches at these specific venues.
England finished in the top three among UEFA teams in the World Cup, however England is not an IOC member and talks for them to compete as Great Britainbroke down.
Nations making their Olympic tournament debut
Men's competition
The competition consisted of two stages; a group stage followed by a knockout stage.
Group stage
Teams were divided into four groups of four countries, playing each team in their group once. Three points were awarded for a victory, one for a draw. The top two teams per group qualified for the quarterfinals.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Knockout stage
Women's competition
The competition consisted of two stages; a group stage followed by a knockout stage.
Group stage
Teams were divided into three groups of four countries, playing each team in their group once. Three points were awarded for a victory, one for a draw. The top two teams per group and best two third-placed teams qualified for the quarterfinals.
