OLYROOS KICK OFF BEIJING OLYMPICS IN MUST-WIN BATTLE AGAINST SERBIA TONIGHT

The Olyroos, Australia’s Olympic football team, will kick off the Beijing Olympics in Shanghai Tonight - the day before the official start of the Games - in a must-win battle against Serbia.

WIN will televise the match from 9.00pm and the telecast will include the live announcement of Australia’s official flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony on Friday.

The Olyroos must defeat Serbia in the opening match of Group A if they are to have a realistic chance of progressing to the quarter finals.

The Olyroos’ second match will be against Athens gold medalist Argentina in Shanghai before they complete the group phase against Ivory Coast in Tianjin next Wednesday.

Australia must finish in the top two to qualify for the quarter finals. The Olyroos were quarter finalists in Athens in 2004 and also reached the last eight in Seoul in 1988. Their best ever performance was in Barcelona in 1992 when it reached the semi finals.

The Olympic football tournament is an under 23 event but all 16 teams are allowed three over age players. Under-pressure coach Graham Arnold has selected Melbourne Victory star Archie Thomson and fellow Socceroos David Carney and Jade North as his over-age players.

Arnold will be hoping Thomson, who was in Guus Hiddink’s 2006 World Cup squad in Germany, keeps his promise that he will score goals in China.
Thomson struck a record five goals against Adelaide United in the 2007 A League Grand Final at the Telstra Dome and holds the world record for the most goals in a World Cup qualifier – an amazing 13 goals in Australia’s 31-0 rout against American Samoa in 2001.

Australia has qualified for every Olympics since 1988 with its only appearance before then being the Melbourne Games in 1956.

An irony of the tournament is that Brazil, the world’s most successful football nation with five World Cups, has never won Olympic football gold and winning in Beijing has become a national obsession. Brazil and fierce rivals Argentina are favoured to play in the Final in Beijing on August 23.

OLYROOS BEIJING SCHEDULE – GROUP A
Thu Aug 7                 Australia v Serbia                                            Shanghai
Sun Aug 10               Australia v Argentina                                       Shanghai
Wed Aug 13              Australia v Ivory Coast                                     Tianjin

OLYMPIC FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT MEDALLISTS SINCE 1984
1984        France, Brazil, Yugoslavia (gold/silver/bronze)
1988        USSR, Brazil, West Germany
1992        Spain, Poland, Ghana (Australia fourth)
1996        Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil
2000        Cameroon, Spain, Chile
2004        Argentina, Paraguay, Italy
 
AUSTRALIA v SERBIA
Thursday 9.00pm on WIN.