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Countries that have won a Gold Medal in Soccer

Guess the 22 countries that have ever won gold in Olympic football. The results may surprise you so here is the source.
Includes countries that no longer exist
This quiz is gender neutral
Quiz by kalbahamut
Rate:
Featured Quiz
Last updated: August 12, 2021
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First submittedAugust 21, 2016
Times taken42,560
Average score68.2%
Rating3.80
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3:00
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Gold
Silver
Bronze
Country
4
2
2
United States
3
1
1
Hungary
3
0
0
Great Britain
2
5
2
Brazil
2
2
0
Argentina
2
0
3
Soviet Union
2
0
2
Canada
2
0
0
Uruguay
1
3
1
Yugoslavia
1
3
0
Spain
1
2
2
Sweden
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Country
1
2
0
Poland
1
1
5
Germany/
West Germany
1
1
1
East Germany
1
1
1
Nigeria
1
1
0
Czechoslovakia
1
1
0
France
1
0
2
Italy
1
0
2
Norway
1
0
1
Belgium
1
0
1
Mexico
1
0
0
Cameroon
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77 Comments
kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Aug 21, 2016
So.... in Rio Brazil and Germany finally learned how to play football and took home their first ever Olympic gold medals in the sport. Though considering all the flak I've taken from Europeans on other quizzes about including women's stats in football quizzes, I wonder if the German women's team victory will even be appreciated.

With those two additions to the gold medal club, this quiz is much less interesting than it used to be. Only really curious omission left I think is Portugal.

Max10
+2
Level 42
Aug 21, 2016
Portugal have had their moments but haven't always been right at the top, and may not have entered many Olympic tournaments
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 21, 2016
You're right. There aren't any truly great teams (consistently great, over the course of many years) that have not won gold now. Germany and Brazil were the last two and they finally managed it in the same year. Though I guess if you take away women's medals then we're still waiting for a German men's gold.

Still, it's funny that Cameroon, Mexico and Nigeria have more gold medals in football than Portugal or some other countries.

kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
Oh it's you, the guy who endlessly complains on every quiz about Germany and West Germany being the same country. So... is East Germany also the same country, now?
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
Olympic medals are not resources that can be acquired or bought. They're tokens representing achievements made by national entities that existed at the time those achievements were made. What you're proposing doesn't make a lot of sense unless you're just trying to bolster Germany's overall Olympic medal count. And it's not really fair to allow one "country" to field two separate teams in the same year.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
but I didn't say that. I said Germany. By which I meant the FRG/BRD.
kalbahamut
+8
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
and.. haha.. the Wikipedia page on the subject was just updated an hour ago to combine all German teams into one. Was that you, gandalf??
stubart409
+4
Level 67
Aug 22, 2016
The Netherlands are the best footballing nation to never win the world cup or the Olympic gold. They have been runners up 3 times in the world cup, but I am not sure what their Olympic record is. Their women's team is not so strong. Brazil, Japan and China are all very good in the women's, but none of them have won Olympic Gold. Hungary in the men's too, in the 1950's. They never won the world cup. They went 8 years when they lost only one game; the so-called Miracle of Bern, when they lost the world cup final 3-2 to West Germany in 1954. One of the biggest underdog upsets of all time.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
Nederland has 3 Olympic bronzes, 0 silver, 0 gold.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 23, 2016
and my follow-up comment was that there was nothing at all incorrect in what I had said. In English, Germany is not East Germany.
schnuederlue
+3
Level 68
Nov 10, 2017
Well, as a German citizen, I fell proud of every gold medal, that FRG/BRD/West Germany has won until 1990. On the other hand, every gold medal, that GDR/DDR/East Germany has won then, was not a (West) German medal. From today's view, both countries are one culture, one people, one nation, but stats are stats and I guess they should remain the way they were (BRD/DDR/Germany).

Next point is, that East Germany would probably never had been able to win any medal, if there had been an organization like WADA in the 50's already

kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Nov 10, 2017
^ yeah, absolutely. I'm sure gandalf takes no issue with stripping Lance Armstrong of his titles. He's said as much elsewhere on the site. Also it's doubtful that most of the countries in Eastern Europe would have performed so well without the influence of the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, etc.. including East Germany. Maybe we should give these medals to Russia. (kidding, stats are stats, agree with what you said)
Jenenser
+2
Level 66
Jul 5, 2020
I think the WADA comment above is stupid. Everybody knows that there was extensive doping in both sides of the iron curtain. Difference was, that on one side it was government-organized and on the other side mostly privately- / club-organized. Pretty similar to how different economies were run in communist / capitalist countries. What a lot of people don't see or don't want to understand (this is part of a bigot-series, isnt it?) is the all-embracing nature of the East German sports system. A lot of money and effort was put into it, having a huge number of permanently employed coaching staff in every single county. There was a close connection to sport-medical departments of universities. And the most important: The nearly-to-perfection-recruiting system starting in Kindergarten, continuing in early school years, analyzing kid's athletic abilities or body physique to find out which type of sports they would perfectly fit in. Without this comprehensive approach the GDR would have....
Jenenser
+2
Level 66
Jul 5, 2020
...never been able to reach the huge number of medals, doping or not. Today it's all about the kid's own motivation (and not to mention parent's financial abilities), a lot of the former sports boarding schools (where the whole school process matched the sporting demands with immense daily training units) disappeared, and you can see the outcome of world class athletes dropped continiously in recent years. Not that I lament, it's just part of exchanging a repressing system with a free one where personal liberty is religion, and I am glad about the change in this part of Germany. Just tired of this all-about-doping-cliché.
panscedar
+12
Level 68
Aug 21, 2016
I commend you for always including women's sports in quizzes.
nichster
+4
Level 55
Sep 27, 2016
Yeah, even though I'm male, women still deserve the same rights as men.
burntofferings4all
+3
Level 53
Aug 22, 2021
In the United States, women have had the same rights as men for decades.
luchini
+6
Level 46
Aug 23, 2021
no way ahhahahaha

how come dude... you guys haven't had a female president yet, still a looong way untill sexism is not a thing anymore

sergeantmalice
+3
Level 56
Jun 14, 2022
but they have the right to run for office like men do, it's just they haven't been voted in yet
Carry
+8
Level 63
Aug 22, 2016
From my experience Olympic soccer achievements aren't as celebrated as World Cup or Euro Cup wins or even seconds all together. No big public viewings, celebrations or flags everywhere. The soccer played at World Cups / Euro Cups is on a whole different level though. I've only seen a few minutes of the men's Olympic final match and it looked less professional to me. Anyway, the German female team won Cups and it was never as big as a deal as the male Teams wins.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
World Cup is more popular and there are restrictions in the Olympic games which mean fewer good teams and fewer good players on each team participate.
Majic
+5
Level 43
Jan 31, 2018
Your understanding of football is rather poor. You see Poland was in last 25 years or so one of the better teams in all junior categories but they couldn't convert that to success in senior careers. It was all down to wrong way of bringing those young players up. Instead of teaching them discipline in tactics they were pushing them for results. In Germany nobody cares if players can win U16 championship if they cant then win anything in adult football, the young guys in Bayern learn to play what coach told them to play regardless of the score. They drill them tactics to the point where they get it perfect and because it happens to be same tactics as first team is using it makes it easier for young players to transmission into adult football. And then they are going on World Cup and even if their team isn't as impressive on paper as some other team they are still bringing medals.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Jan 31, 2018
You may be right.
Majic
+3
Level 43
Jan 31, 2018
Also your argument that East Germany was a different country is rather poor. During the civil war there were plenty of inventions made and you consider them to be American inventions not Union inventions for example. At the end of the day those medals belong to Germans.
kalbahamut
+7
Level 81
Jan 31, 2018
That makes no sense whatsoever.
Julotek
+3
Level 61
Aug 22, 2021
There is no surprise here.

The male teams are only the U21 ones.

For instance you get 0 player from the French team who won the last world cup... and even from the U21 team which was not that bad and which qualified because the clubs didn't want to let them go.

So you got the second or third choice of the U21 team aka not the best players.

If one knows football well, one can't expect to have the teams which perform in the World Cup to be the same during the OG ;)

kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 21, 2016
I reduced the time limit from 4 minutes to 3 minutes because this was too easy
Rangifer
+3
Level 55
Aug 22, 2016
Go Canada!
kalbahamut
+3
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
Canada's gold medal comes from 1900, the first year they ever played football at the Olympics. There were only 3 teams competing that year and the other 2 teams were American club teams. Not a very impressive feat, but, I guess it still counts. :)

Their women's team is quite good. But have never won gold.

WhatIsLove
+1
Level 60
Dec 12, 2017
Umm actually, it was in 1904 not 1900. But still, canadian pride is strong considering it's still one more soccer gold medal than portugal. Take that, Ronaldo.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Dec 13, 2017
Oops, my mistake. Yes, 1900 was in Paris and 1904 was St Louis (crazy event, fun to read about) where they played soccer for the first time and the Canadian team won.
JWatson24
+3
Level 71
Aug 22, 2021
And now they (as in the women's team) have won gold! Looks like that comment was just 5 years too early :)
FlickerP
+1
Level 73
Aug 23, 2021
@WhatIsLove Ronaldo played in the Olympics some 17 years ago as a 19 year old. I doubt he will be too bothered at not having an Olympic medal amongst his collection as it really isn't considered a prestige competition if you look at the players that do and don't compete in it
Magarara
+1
Level 54
Aug 22, 2016
Not too easy. Could have used more time.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
I think with 4 minutes it was too easy. 3 minutes seems about right. 28% guessing Cameroon feels about right. Before it was about 60%.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
and the average score was 19 which is way too high for a 22 country quiz that includes defunct countries.
pudding
+1
Level 26
Aug 22, 2016
A really good quiz kalbahamut! I was surprised how Hungary got more medals than Germany/West Germany!
kalbahamut
+3
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
Hungary had an amazing team in the 1950s and 1960s. The Mighty Magyars
Tim000w
+1
Level 71
Aug 22, 2016
The Netherlands are often considered the best football team who hasn't won a world cup; guess they're also the biggest who haven't won a gold medal either
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
Most impressive standings for countries that have not won gold include Denmark (3 silvers, 1 bronze), Bulgaria (1 silver, 1 bronze), and Japan (1 silver, 1 bronze). The Netherlands has often had a good team but they've never even managed to take home silver. They do have three 3rd-place finishes, though.
Tim000w
+1
Level 71
Aug 23, 2016
Yes, they suck at olympics, but no one will argue that any of those 3 teams are historically better than the Netherlands with three runner up places at WC-finals (which is considered a lot more prestigious and is way more heavily contested than winning the summer olympics)
DiscoBayGolfer
+1
Level 78
Aug 22, 2016
3:00 is fair, any more time and you can simply start guessing random countries. I missed Nigeria, and I don't even really like soccer, but with another minute I may have come up with it. 3:00 is the perfect amount of time.
manchesterutd10
+2
Level 57
Aug 22, 2016
hungary used to be such ballers what with ferenc puskas laszlo kubala and sandor kocsis
herberttheperv
+1
Level 47
May 19, 2023
and Nandor Hidgekoti
stoooopot
+7
Level 68
Aug 22, 2016
It's not 'soccer', it's football goddammit!
kalbahamut
+5
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
It's clearly both. But QM is the one who changed the title.
Findlay
+2
Level 82
Aug 22, 2016
If we're being technical - the event is labelled as 'Football' in all official Olympic contexts. Though obviously no one is left confused when it's called soccer, whereas the same is not true of 'football', so there are arguments to be made either way. It seems to be a strangely emotive issue for some.
kalbahamut
+3
Level 81
Aug 22, 2016
The title says soccer. The description says football. But people still complain.. :P
cosmokim
+2
Level 67
Oct 3, 2016
Just look at the link. He originally put "football". Give QM a hard time.
Eamo
+4
Level 75
Feb 3, 2021
I grew up in the 60s and 70s in Dublin, devouring British football magazines, comics and books. Soccer and football were used interchangeably on this side of the Atlantic in those days. Then came the NASL, and everyone on this side of the pond suddenly hated the word soccer and pretended that it is a US invention. Which it isn't. Great quiz by the way!
Findlay
+1
Level 82
Aug 22, 2016
Only missed East Germany. Probably would have missed Cameroon, except that I was there in the stadium watching when they did it, which was kinda hard to forget.
buck1017
+1
Level 78
Aug 23, 2016
It wasn't until there was 5 seconds left that I realized that former countries were included, so I missed 4 I would have otherwise had.
PSTSCCH
+1
Level 47
Aug 23, 2016
Still waiting for some Asian teams to be on this list one day.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Aug 23, 2016
Japan and China both have excellent women's teams. I think that's Asia's best hope. Korea (both north and south, surprisingly), Thailand, and Vietnam all have good women's teams, as well. Asia apparently much better about supporting female athletes than Europe is. On the men's side... I don't think there's much hope of an Asian gold any time soon. Turkey's men's team is okay, if you want to put them in Asia. Iran and Japan are both okay. That's about it.
Jeremy
+1
Level 75
Aug 26, 2016
Please accept Russia for Soviet Union.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Aug 26, 2016
I normally would as the USSR and Russia were basically synonymous when I was growing up. However, when it comes to Olympic medals, they are definitely two distinct things (much like East Germany and Germany) with separate medal counts. Russia has never won a gold medal for soccer.
barmanitan
+2
Level 79
Feb 7, 2020
I don't really understand how the medal counts can be two distinct things, when what the teams (winning the medals) are representing are "basically synonymous". They're synonymous enough for Wiki and worldfootball.net.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Feb 9, 2020
I guess I've got higher standards than worldfootball.net, then.
NapoleonBonaparte
+1
Level 65
Nov 5, 2017
I don't see how these are very surprising
kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Jan 4, 2018
You must know a great deal about Olympics football history, then.
JWatson24
+3
Level 71
Aug 15, 2018
The things that surprised me most was that the US has the most gold medals in Olympic soccer considering the US's abysmal performances at the FIFA World Cup.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Aug 15, 2018
If you consider the results of all teams (both genders) the US performance at the World Cup is also impressive.

But I thought that, for the average person, the fact that the United States and Hungary were the top two would be surprising, and maybe the fact that East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Cameroon and Mexico had all won more gold medals than Portugal or the Netherlands might also be surprising. Prior to the last Olympics they had also won more than Brazil or Germany. Most people don't think of Cameroon as more accomplished at football than Brazil.

JWatson24
+1
Level 71
Aug 22, 2021
Yeah when I posted that comment I forgot about the women's team :P
DHA
+1
Level 65
Aug 24, 2021
Most counties don't care about the olympic football medal
Clement445
+1
Level 36
May 27, 2020
Time for the USWNT to go down but surprisingly, anytime the USWNT fails to win the world cup, they'll win the Olympics.

But if they win the world cup that year, they won't win the next Olympics. 😂

Jenenser
+3
Level 66
Jul 5, 2020
It's a funny quiz and I can see the eye-winking irony in it.

But you should not be too surprised about the results if you are aware about men's football olympic medals being absolutely no indicator of the real football powers. For a long time only "amateur players" were allowed to play at the Olympics and therefore communist countries like East Germany, Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia could send their best players, who were >only officially< amateurs, while the big western football nations had to send their secondaries. Today I there is an age limit, players have to be under 23 years I think, so you won't see Messi, Ronaldo and Co.

kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Jul 5, 2020
The amateur rule in Olympics did for a long time have an effect. For example the fact that the USA was not so dominant in basketball prior to Barcelona, and how the USSR was so dominant in ice hockey because they didn't have a professional league. But.. "absolutely no indicator?" that goes too far.
camus
+3
Level 78
Aug 22, 2021
To add to that, the European Championship and often enough other continental tournaments take place only a few weeks before the Summer Olympics, meaning that except for very few exceptions, players who take part in the former skip the latter. The squads that take part in the Olympics are cobbled together from various youth teams (minus the best players that are already called up by their A national teams) plus some older second or third rate players and occasionally a star who doesn't have other commitments that summer (most of those would rather take a vacation though).

Messi once won gold early on in his career. I'd say that after the UEFA Champions League, the Spanish championship, the Spanish cup, the Copa America, the Euro super cup and the Spanish super cup (the latter two of which only consist of a single match), Olympic Gold is about the seventh most talked about title he managed to win. In other words, no one really cares.

(Refers to the men's tournament only)

NielsDeNoob
+1
Level 65
Dec 17, 2020
*football
bibohbi
+1
Level 58
Apr 14, 2021
I find it sad how the UK got 3 gold medals but no silver or bronze medals.
nichster
+1
Level 55
Aug 11, 2021
Needs an update to include Tokyo results.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 81
Aug 11, 2021
Brazil and Canada won gold, right? So... wouldn't change any of the answers. I'll update the numbers later today.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
Aug 11, 2021
Done. Pending review. Just some minor order shuffling...
ipdsj
+1
Level 38
Aug 15, 2021
GB should be accepted for Great Britain.
stylus
+1
Level 77
May 26, 2022
i gather from reading the comments that when in the description you say 'this quiz is gender neutral' that you mean it includes both men's and women's teams, but it feels like an unusual way of phrasing it. could you be more explicit and just say what you mean ie includes men's and women's teams?
kalbahamut
+2
Level 81
May 26, 2022
I don't see this as confusing.
LuckyCat
+2
Level 60
Apr 5, 2023
Uruguay? Cameroon? wow.
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