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 Olympisch Stadion in Antwerp hosted the final | |||||||
| Event | Football at the 1920 Summer Olympics | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Awarded | |||||||
| Date | 2 September 1920 | ||||||
| Venue | Olympisch Stadion, Antwerp | ||||||
| Referee | John Lewis (England) | ||||||
| Attendance | 35,000 | ||||||
The 1920 Summer Olympic football gold medal match was a football match to determine the gold medal winners of men's football tournament at the 1920 Summer Olympics. The match was the third final of the men's football tournament at the Olympics, a quadrennial tournament contested by the men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA to decide the Olympic champions. The final opposed Belgium, the tournament's hosting team, and Czechoslovakia and was played at the Olympisch Stadion, in Antwerp, Belgium, on 2 September 1920.
The match is famous for the Cezchoslovaks' abbandon of the match toward the end of the first half, in protest after Karel Steiner was sent-off by English referee John Lewis.[1] Czechoslovakia were ejected from the competition and Belgium were declared Olympic champions.[1]
Background[edit]
The 1920 Olympic Games in general symbolised the return to peace after Belgium was under German control for four years during the First World War.[2] The 1920 Games were the first Olympiads to be played since 1912 in Stockholm, as the 1916 edition in Berlin was cancelled due to the war.[2] Antwerp was awarded unanimously the Olympics in April 1919, in Lausanne, as it was the emblem of Belgian resistence during the German invasion of the country, in 1914.[2] The losers of the First World War, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria were excluded from the Games.[2]
Route to the final[edit]
| Belgium | Round | Czechoslovakia | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opponent | Result | Main tournament | Opponent | Result |
| Bye | First round |  Kingdom of SCS
|
7–0 | |
 Spain
|
3–1 | Quarter-finals |  Norway
|
4–0 |
 Netherlands
|
3–0 | Semifinals |  France
|
4–1 |
Belgium received a bye to the first round and directly accessed to the quarter-finals, where they defeated Spain 3–1 with a Robert Coppée's hat-trick.[1] In the semifinals, Belgium beat rivals Netherlands 3–0 with goals from Henri Larnoe, Louis Van Hege and Mathieu Bragard. Czechoslovkia had to play the first round, in which they vanquished 7–0 the Kingdom of SCS, to gain qualification to the quarter-finals, where they beat Norway 4–0.[1] In the semi-finals, with three goals in the last 15 minutes of the match, they had better of France 4–1.[1]
Match[edit]
      Belgium
|
   Czechoslovakia
|
|
|
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The match between the two finalists was played on 2 September 1920 and was seen by 35,000 people.[1] L'Auto's report of the following day read: "The stadium was full to bursting an hour before the match. The ticket desks were closed and a very large crowd waited in vain outside the gates" and estimated an attendance of 50,000 spectators at the Olypisch Stadion.[1] As the stadium was overfull, its gates had to be shut down, and thousands of people could not access.[3] The environment with which the match began was described as "boiling".[4] Belgium resisted to the first Czechoslovaks attacks and at the sixth minute of play, the referee awarded a penalty to the Belgians for handball; Robert Copée gave Belgium the lead.[1] The decision of 65-year old English referee John Lewis to assign the penalty followed a strong protest by the Czechosloviaks because of an earlier foul on goalkeeper Rudolf Klapka.[3] The game saw many fouls committed and the referee was described as "not up to the game."[3] In the 30th minute, Henri Larnoe made it 2–0.[1]
In the 39th minute, Czechoslovakia's left back Karel Steiner was sent-off by John Lewis for "violently fouling" Henri Larnoe.[4] Captain Karel Pešek followed Steiner's exit from the pitch in protest; this led the other nine players to leave the field as well.[3]
Aftermath[edit]
After the match was abbandoned, the spectators invaded the pitch and mocked the Czeschoslovakia's players; the Belgian military situated inside the stadium barely managed to get the Cezchoslovaks out safely.[3] The Czechoslovaks requested the match be called off.[1] However, Belgium were declared winners and Czechoslovkia were ejected from the competition and were revoked their silver medals by International Olympic Committee (IOC).[1] The Czechoslovaks' behaviour was condemned by the IOC as unsporting.[1] Three FIFA's investigators were sent to analyse what happened, but the IOC's decision was confirmed.[3]
To assign the silver medal, the IOC decided that the winner of the arleady-running consolation tournament among the best losers of the main tournament would be assigned the medal.[3] Some tournament's games were considered as part of another competition, and the silver medal tournament should have been contested by two of the four losers of the quarter-finals and by the two losers of the semi-finals.[3] However, as semifinals losers France rejected the invitation to the tournament since most of their players had already departed from Belgium, they made Spain, the best team of the consolation tournament, play Netherlands, the losers of the other semifinal, for the silver medal.[3][4] Spain prevailed 3–1 over the Netherlands and won the silver medal, while the Oranje had their third consecutive bronze medal.[1]
As of 2021, the 1920 Belgium's gold medal still remains their only major trophy.[3]
Reference[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "The "Red Devils" at the top of world football at Antwerp 1920". International Olympic Committee. 30 March 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
- ^ a b c d Trouillard, Stéphanie (18 August 2020). "JO-1920 : à Anvers, les Jeux olympiques de la paix". France 24 (in French). Retrieved 22 June 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "IFFHS (Fußball Historie & Statistiken)". IFFHS (in English, Spanish, German, and French). 2020-04-10. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
- ^ a b c Audureau, William (8 July 2018). "Quand la Belgique remportait l'ancêtre de la Coupe du monde". Le Monde. Archived from the original on 23 December 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
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