Football at the 1928 Summer Olympics

• 1. The Last Olympic Crown

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  Football was one of the tournaments at the 1928 Summer Olympics. It was won by Uruguay against Argentina, and was the last Olympic football tournament before the inception of the FIFA World Cup, which was held for the first time in 1930. This edition, along with the preceding 1924 edition, were the only tournaments in history outside of the World Cup that count as Senior World Titles equivalent to the World Cup. Until 1928, the Olympic football tournament had represented the World Championship of football. The 1920, 1924, and 1928 tournaments all had greater participation than that of the first World Cup in 1930. This presented a significant problem for the governing body, FIFA, since the tournament, though organised and run by FIFA, was an event subject to the ethical foundation that underpinned the Olympic movement.

• 2. Amateur Rules And Broken Time

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  At the time, all Olympic competitors had to maintain an amateur status, whereas professionalism was dominant in football. Increasingly, FIFA had sought to appease those nations that required concessions in order that players could participate in the Olympics. This required there to be an acceptance that irregular payment could be made to players by national associations: the so-called broken time payments by which loss of pay and expenses would be met. On the 17th of February 1928, the four home associations of the United Kingdom voted unanimously to withdraw from FIFA in opposition to the manner in which the governing body was seeking to dictate on such matters. Henri Delaunay, president of the French Football Federation felt that FIFA needed to organise an international tournament outside of the Olympics. In 1926 he stated at the FIFA Conference that today international football can no longer be held within the confines of the Olympics. Many countries where professionalism is now recognised and organised cannot any longer be represented there by their best players.

• 3. The Birth Of A New Cup

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  The day before the tournament began, on the 26th of May 1928 the FIFA congress in Amsterdam presided over by Jules Rimet voted that a new FIFA World Cup tournament be organised in 1930 and be open to all member nations. Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Uruguay would all lodge applications to host the event. By 1926, three years had passed since the British Associations had asked FIFA to accept their definition of what an amateur player was. FIFA had refused. The Rome Convention was called to try to coax the British and Danes back into the fold; it proved only to distance them. Switzerland, a nation that favoured broken time payments suggested that it is not allowed to pay compensation for broken time except in some well-circumscribed cases to be fixed by each National Association. This challenge to the centralised authority of FIFA was disputed by the Football Association. In 1927 FIFA asked the Olympic committee to accept the concept of broken time payments as an overriding condition for the competing members.

• 4. European Campaigns And Tactics

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  Ten European nations including seventeen in all had made the journey to the Netherlands for the competition. The Italians had been defeated only twice in three years. The Italian coach Augusto Rangone had been a beneficiary of the national federation's decision in 1923 to permit subsidies to cover players lost wages. For two years his forward line had remained comparatively the same: Adolfo Baloncieri and Virgilio Levratto. Even the loss of the Argentinian-Italian Julio Libonatti before the tournament was made good by the inclusion of Angelo Schiavio. Spain had been defeated once since the last Olympic Games. After the first game however they lost their experienced captain Pedro Vallana. In another quarter-final the Italians encountered Spain. In the first game they reached a tie with the Spanish fighting back from a half time deficit to force a replay. In the replay three days later the Azzurri scored four without response before the break. Rangone kept faith in a largely unchanged team while Spain on the other hand had gambled by making five changes to Italy's two.

• 5. The Final Replay Drama

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  In the final the Uruguayans played Argentina who had trounced Egypt clearly out of their depth against more sophisticated opposition. They conceded six goals to Argentina and eleven to Italy in the bronze medal match. The final itself was a close-run affair. Both nations had been undefeated in competitive matches against other nations but had traded losses to each other since the last Olympic competition. The interest was immense. The Dutch had received 250,000 requests for tickets from all over Europe. Once again there was little in it; the first game finished 1, 1 and the tie went to a replay. Uruguay's Scarone converted the winner in the second half of that game. José Pedro Cea and Héctor Scarone scored for the Celestes during the semi-final where the Uruguayans stormed to a convincing lead by the break. Levratto's goal in the second half flattered the Italians because Uruguay ran out comfortable winners by the odd goal in five.

• 6. Top Scorers And Numbers

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  Domingo Tarasconi of Argentina scored eleven goals to become the top scorer of the tournament. Manuel Ferreira of Argentina and Adolfo Baloncieri of Italy both scored six goals. Roberto Cherro of Argentina, Raymond Braine of Belgium, Ali Mohamed Riad of Egypt, El-Tetsh of Egypt, Richard Hofmann of Germany, Elvio Banchero of Italy, Virgilio Levratto of Italy, Mario Magnozzi of Italy, Angelo Schiavio of Italy, José Maria Yermo of Spain, and Pedro Petrone of Uruguay each scored four goals. Raimundo Orsi of Argentina, Jacques Moeschal of Belgium, Guillermo Subiabre of Chile, Vítor Silva of Portugal, and Héctor Scarone of Uruguay all scored three goals. Juste Brouzes of France, Leonardus Ghering of Netherlands, Felix Smeets of Netherlands, Pepe Soares of Portugal, and Luis Regueiro of Spain each scored two goals. Luis Monti of Argentina, Florimond Vanhalme of Belgium, Louis Versyp of Belgium, Oscar Alfaro of Chile, Alejandro Carbonell of Chile, Manuel Bravo Paredes of Chile, and Guillermo Saavedra of Chile all scored one goal.