You don’t normally associate football with the Olympics – but some of the all-time greats of the sport have won a gold medal at the games.
Men’s football has been an Olympic sport since 1900 and women’s football was finally included in 1996, meaning a wide range of stars have participated at the tournament.
We’ve listed 11 legendary footballers who have won Olympic Gold, from Okocha to Messi.
Jay-Jay Okocha
Nigeria’s 1996 Olympic-winning team is borderline mythic and it was only 28 years ago. The Super Eagles defeated an Argentina side that included Hernan Crespo, Javier Zanetti, Ariel Ortega, Roberto Ayala, and Diego Simeone—essentially the side that put England out of World Cup ’98.
The shining star in that Nigeria team was a then 22-year-old Jay-Jay Okocha, so good they should’ve named him five times, let alone twice.
Okocha’s Nigeria also beat a Brazil side featuring Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Roberto Carlos, and Bebeto via a golden goal in the semifinals, too. More on that later.
Juan Roman Riquelme
The thinking football fan’s favourite baller Juan Roman Riquelme rocked up to Beijing as an overage player in a quite ridiculous squad. Adding the languid megs-machine to a team featuring Aguero, Zabaleta, Di Maria, Banega, Mascherano, and a certain fellow number 10 we’ll be mentioning later, well… It just seems illegal.
Having said that, Brazil brought a 28-year-old prime Ronaldinho along to the tournament so… Fight fire with fire, we guess.
Christie Pearce
America’s legendary centre-half won three Olympic golds in a row. That’s crazy. At this point, we have to shoutout Heather O’Reilly and Heather Mitts, who also won three Olympic golds with USWNT, alongside one other all-time great, who we’ll be chatting about later.
Played 311 games for the States, only scored four goals—proper defender. Invert that, Pep.
Ferenc Puskas
Imagine your name literally being synonymous with beautiful goals. To be fair, he scored all genres of goal. A total of 710 goals in 719 competitive games is absurd.
The Hungarian’s legacy is baked into the fabric of history. A short list of things named for Ferenc Puskas: Two football stadia, an asteroid, a street in Budapest, a statue in Melbourne, and an annual award for class goals.
The great man won Olympic gold in Helsinki with Hungary at the second post-war games, all the way back in 1952.
Pep Guardiola
He’s won everything else—might as well chuck an Olympic gold medal in there for good measure. Probably has it hanging up in a toilet somewhere. Or maybe he keeps it in the loft with all his other winner’s medals and uses them to decorate the Christmas tree.
Michelle Akers
Akers is a true, true footballing legend, and it seems only right that she won Olympic gold with USWNT.
A once prolific striker—probably the best in the world—who was struck with chronic fatigue syndrome, refused to give up on the beautiful game, and simply became the best holding midfielder in the game instead.
Her’s is an inspirational story with lessons to be learned about life in general, not just about football.
Nwankwo Kanu
Kanu was enigmatic and f*cking brilliant. He once scored a goal for Arsenal against Deportivo la Coruna, where he somehow sat the goalkeeper down using only his eyeballs, then just popped the ball into the unguarded goal. The sort of Cruyff-esque flick goal against Middlesbrough became known as a ‘Kanu’ in school yards up and down the UK, and that one against Chelsea from a 1 degree angle—forget about it.
The lanky genius also happened to score the last minute equaliser AND the golden goal in the Olympic semifinal against Brazil in 1996.
Samuel Eto’o
In a football tournament that didn’t boast too many big hitters, Italy, Spain, and Brazil would all have fancied their chances at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, despite the presence of reigning champs Nigeria.
They almost certainly hadn’t figured Cameroon into their plans, but they should’ve done, because the Indomitable Lions ended up doing the Spanish on penalties in the final.
Eto’o, Lauren, and Geremi all scored in that shootout, and Xavi, Carles Puyol and co. left with only a silver medal.
Shannon Boxx
Earlier on, we mentioned another baller who had won three gold medals with the United States. Shannon Boxx is her, and her story is pretty extraordinary.
The midfielder won gold in 2004, 2008, and 2012, despite having being diagnosed with lupus in 2007. Lupus is bad news for anyone but, if you happen to be a footballer, it can be career-ending. Winning two Olympic gold medals post-diagnosis is crazy.
Boxx grew up mixed-race in a single-parent home, took it upon herself to learn about her African American heritage at university, and now has the key to the City of New York, as well as having been honoured by Barack Obama at the White House.
Boxx’s sister Gillian is also an Olympic gold medallist, having won gold in the softball tournament in 1996. Strong genes in that family for sure.
Lionel Messi
You guessed it—Messi was the other number 10 who won gold alongside Juan Roman Riquelme et al. back in 2008. Of course he was.
Argentina actually won gold in the previous tournament—Athens 2004—but that came just a little too soon for Leo. The Albiceleste did have Carlos Tevez and Javier Saviola up front, however, so it’s not like they weren’t blessed with firepower before the goat trotted up to the podium.
Neymar
Rio de Janeiro 2016, baby. A home victory for the Selecao. Again, this squad was stacked. Beside Neymar, you’ve got your Gabriel Jesuses, your Marquinhoses, your Rafinhas (as in Thiago Alcantara’s brother), your Felipe Andersons, your Gabigols…
Brazil’s Olympic squad in 2016 also included players called William and Walace. Really hoping they call up some unknown wonderkid called Braveheartinho for the Paris games. Do it, you cowards.
