# Football at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's European Qualifiers

The European Qualifiers for men's football competitions at the 1988 Summer Olympics to be held in Seoul. The tournament took place from 10 September 1986 to 31 May 1988 including a preliminary round. At the end, five countries qualified including West Germany, Italy, Sweden, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia.
The draw for the tournament took place on 27 May 1986 in Mexico City just before the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Out of 34 European football nations at the time in tournament participated only 27 with five allowing for qualification to the Summer Olympics football tournament. All participants were split in five groups of five teams with winners of each qualify for the Olympics. Four teams were contesting two berths in two of five groups.
Seven football nations that did not participate included four team of British islands (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) that refused to form the unified Great Britain team required by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Malta (never fielded its team previously), Luxembourg (not fielding in 1980s), and Albania (political restrictions since 1972).
Turkey and Eastern Bloc nations such as East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union, that boycotted the 1984 Olympics football tournament in Los Angeles, returned to the Olympic competition.

## Summary

| Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D | Group E |
| West Germany | Italy | Sweden | Soviet Union | Yugoslavia |
| Denmark Poland Romania Greece | East Germany Portugal Netherlands Iceland | Hungary Spain Republic of Ireland France | Bulgaria Switzerland Norway Turkey | Czechoslovakia Belgium Austria Finland |
| Cyprus | | | Liechtenstein | |

## Group A
### Preliminary play-off

| Team 1 | Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score | Team 2 | 1st leg | 2nd leg |
| Cyprus | 1–4 | Greece | 1–2 | 0–2 |

### Group stage

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification | | | | | |
| 1 | West Germany | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 16 | 4 | +12 | 12 | 1988 Summer Olympics | — | 1–1 | 5–1 | 3–0 | 3–0 |
| 2 | Denmark | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 23 | 5 | +18 | 11 | | 0–1 | — | 3–0 | 8–0 | 4–0 |
| 3 | Poland | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 10 | +1 | 10 | | 1–1 | 2–0* | — | 1–0 | 5–1 |
| 4 | Romania | 8 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 17 | −12 | 5 | | 1–0 | 1–2 | 0–0 | — | 0–1 |
| 5 | Greece | 8 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 23 | −19 | 2 | | 0–2 | 0–5 | 0–1 | 2–3 | — |

## Group B

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification | | | | | |
| 1 | Italy | 8 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 11 | 1 | +10 | 13 | 1988 Summer Olympics | — | 1–1 | 1–0 | 3–0 | 2–0 |
| 2 | East Germany | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 5 | +7 | 11 | | 0–0 | — | 3–0 | 4–2 | 3–0 |
| 3 | Portugal | 8 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 6 | −2 | 8 | | 0–0 | 0–0 | — | 1–1 | 2–1 |
| 4 | Netherlands | 8 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 12 | −6 | 5 | | 0–1 | 0–1 | 0–0 | — | 1–0 |
| 5 | Iceland | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 14 | −9 | 3 | | 0–3 | 2–0 | 0–1 | 2–2 | — |

## Group C

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification | | | | | |
| 1 | Sweden | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 6 | +7 | 13 | 1988 Summer Olympics | — | 1–0 | 2–0 | 1–0 | 4–2 |
| 2 | Hungary | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 13 | 8 | +5 | 11 | | 2–1 | — | 2–1 | 3–1 | 2–2 |
| 3 | Spain | 8 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 12 | −3 | 6 | | 1–1 | 1–0 | — | 2–2 | 1–2 |
| 4 | Republic of Ireland | 8 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 12 | −2 | 5 | | 0–1 | 1–2 | 2–2 | — | 3–0 |
| 5 | France | 8 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 16 | −7 | 5 | | 1–2 | 0–2 | 1–1 | 1–1 | — |

## Group D
### Preliminary play-off

| Team 1 | Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score | Team 2 | 1st leg | 2nd leg |
| Liechtenstein | 0–19 | Switzerland | 0–10 | 0–9 |

### Group stage

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Soviet Union | 8 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 2 | +10 | 14 | 1988 Summer Olympics |
| 2 | Bulgaria | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 13 | 5 | +8 | 10 | |
| 3 | Switzerland | 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 10 | −2 | 7 | |
| 4 | Norway | 8 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 7 | −6 | 5 | |
| 5 | Turkey | 8 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 15 | −10 | 4 | |

## Group E

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Yugoslavia | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 5 | +12 | 13 | 1988 Summer Olympics |
| 2 | Czechoslovakia | 8 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 3 | +7 | 12 | |
| 3 | Belgium | 8 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 8 | 13 | −5 | 7 | |
| 4 | Austria | 8 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 7 | 11 | −4 | 4 | |
| 5 | Finland | 8 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 15 | −10 | 4 | |

## Goalscorers
### 7 goals

* Claus Nielsen

### 5 goals

* Flemming Povlsen
* Pietro Paolo Virdis
* Walter Pellegrini

### 4 goals

* Kim Vilfort
* Jürgen Klinsmann
* Frank Mill
* Wolfram Wuttke
* Gyula Plotár
* Jan Furtok
* Ramón Vázquez
* Alain Sutter

### 3 goals

* Stoycho Stoev
* Ioannis Samaras
* Noel Larkin
* Guðmundur Torfason
* Gavril Balint
* Christophe Bonvin
* Roger Hegi
* Philippe Hertig
* Jan Hellström
* Tomáš Skuhravý
* Volodymyr Lyutyi
* Radmilo Mihajlović
* Dejan Savićević
* Semir Tuce

### 2 goals

* Rupert Marko
* P.J. Werner
* Francis Severeyns
* Petar Aleksandrov
* Aleksandar Bonchev
* Vasil Dragolov
* Lyuboslav Penev
* Bjørn Kristensen
* Ulrik Moseby
* Lars Olsen
* Seppo Nikkilä
* Thierry Fernier
* Bruno Roux
* Damian Halata
* Olaf Marschall
* Heiko Peschke
* Hans Richter
* György Katona
* Mick Bennett
* Mick Byrne
* Andrea Carnevale
* Manuel Zúñiga
* Martin Müller
* René Müller
* Kubilay Türkyilmaz
* Michael Andersson
* Leif Engqvist
* Leif Forsberg
* Peter Herda
* Ziya Doğan
* Stanislovas Baranauskas
* Igor Dobrovolski
* Oleksiy Mykhailychenko
* Davor Jozić

### 1 goal

* Paul Perstling
* Andreas Spielmann
* Manfred Zsak
* Beugnies
* Danny Boffin
* Marc Degryse
* Goossens
* Schoofs
* Benoît Thans
* Georgi Georgiev
* Petar Mihtarski
* Pavlos Savva
* John Jensen
* Brian Laudrup
* Kent Nielsen
* Ismo Lius
* Marko Myyry
* Jari Niinimäki
* Patrick Cubaynes
* Antoine Kombouaré
* Fabrice Mege
* Jean-Pierre Papin
* Philippe Prieur
* Armin Görtz
* Christian Hochstätter
* Christian Schreier
* Fritz Walter
* Thomas Doll
* Matthias Lindner
* Jürgen Raab
* Markus Wuckel
* Alexandros Alexiou
* Ioukoudis
* Charis Mbaniotis
* Theodoros Pahatouridis
* Alexandros Tziolis
* József Dzurják
* Imre Fodor
* Béla Melis
* Sándor Rostás
* Péter Rubold
* Sándor Steidl
* István Vincze
* Dave Barry
* Peter Eccles
* Barry Kehoe
* Ólafur Þórðarson
* Guðmundur Steinsson
* Roberto Galia
* Marco Pacione
* Francesco Romano
* Mauro Tassotti
* Mario Been
* Ruud Brood
* Juul Ellerman
* Hans Gillhaus
* Hennie Meyer
* Peter van Velzen
* Jostein Flo
* Marek Leśniak
* Andrzej Rudy
* Kazimierz Sokołowski
* Grzegorz Wiezik
* António Aparício
* Cerqueiro
* Coelho
* Miguel
* Haralambie Antohi
* Claudiu Vaișcovici
* Genar Andrinúa
* Eusebio Sacristán
* Rafael Martín Vázquez
* Roger Kundert
* Patrice Mottiez
* Beat Rietmann
* Mats Jingblad
* Peter Lönn
* Ola Svensson
* Jonas Thern
* Václav Daněk
* Radek Drulák
* Peter Fieber
* Ľubomír Moravčík
* Ivo Staš
* Nusret Erdi Demir
* Uğur Tütüneker
* Erdoğan Yılmaz
* Aleksandr Borodyuk
* Yevgeni Kuznetsov
* Yuri Savichev
* Dragiša Binić
* Borislav Cvetković
* Predrag Jurić
* Sead Kajtaz
* Srečko Katanec
* Dragan Stojković