Association football at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Men's European Qualifiers

Men's European Qualifier
Tournament details
Teams	8 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	4
Goals scored	16 (4 per match)
	1960 →

The Men's European Football Qualifiers for the 1956 Summer Olympics were the first qualification tournament for the European football teams.^[1]

Beside the hosting Australian team, the International Olympic Committee reserved direct spots for 3 European teams including Poland, Turkey and West Germany. In addition, it provided 4 more spots which were contested among 8 teams including the reigning Olympic champions Hungary.

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Bulgaria	5–3	Great Britain	2–0	3–3
Yugoslavia	w/o¹	Romania	—	—
Hungary	w/o²	East Germany	—	—
Soviet Union	7–1	Israel	5–0	2–1

¹ Romania withdrew.
² As East and West Germany agreed to compete together at the 1956 Olympics, East Germany withdrew. However, after an agreement for a combined football team fell through, a solely West German one was fielded.

23 October 1955 1956 Olympics – Qualifying	Bulgaria	2–0	Great Britain	Sofia, Bulgaria
	Stefanov 30' Yanev 61'	Report		Stadium: Vasil Levski National Stadium Attendance: 45,000 Referee: Giorgio Bernardi (Italy)

12 May 1956 1956 Olympics – Qualifying	Great Britain	3–3 (3–5 agg.)	Bulgaria	London, UK
	Hardisty 12', 62' Lewis 77' (pen.)	Report	Milanov 28' Prince 32' (o.g.) Dimitrov 66'	Stadium: Wembley Stadium Attendance: 30,000 Referee: Giorgio Bernardi (Italy)

Note: Britain lost 5–3 on aggregate, but earned a reprieve to compete in Melbourne^[2]

Both Bulgaria and Great Britain advanced.

11 July 1956

Soviet Union	5–0	Israel
Tatushin 2' Ivanov 26', 71' Simonyan 45', 78'	Report (ru)

Dynamo Stadium, Moscow

Attendance: 54,000

Referee: Sandy Griffiths (Wales)

31 July 1956

Israel	1–2	Soviet Union
Stelmach 64'	Report (ru)	Tatushin 59' Ilyin 79'

Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan

Attendance: 60,000

Referee: Francesco Liverani^[3] (Italy)

Soviet Union advanced.

References

^ Games of the XX. Olympiad. RSSSF.
^ How Britain's footballers earned a reprieve to compete in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Archived 9 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine Inside the Games, 1 July 2012; Retrieved 12 August 2012
^ Francesco Liverani profile

[1] Games of the XX. Olympiad. RSSSF.

[barker-2] How Britain's footballers earned a reprieve to compete in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Archived 9 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine Inside the Games, 1 July 2012; Retrieved 12 August 2012

[3] Francesco Liverani profile

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