Football at the 1952 Summer Olympics
In the XV. 1952 Olympics in Helsinki was held in a football competition. Venues were next to Helsinki with the Olympic Stadium and the stadium still Pallokenttä Kotka, Lahti, the Ratina Stadium in Tampere and the Kupittaa Stadium in Turku. The winner was Hungary with an Eastern European team whose dominance to 1980 determined the Olympic football tournaments for the first time. Germany reached for the first time by the national coach Sepp Herberger managed by German amateur team at an Olympic Football Tournament the semifinals, but retired there against the Yugoslavs, which thus as four years before again reached the final. In the quarterfinals, was achieved with 4:2 after extra time the so far only victory against Brazil at a major football tournament. In the match for 3rd place, the German team lost against defending champion Sweden, whose cadres were five players of the World Cup squad of 1950.
The sensation of the tournament was the victory of Luxembourg on the British team 5-3 after extra time. Luxembourg difference it made in the second round against Brazil.
Hosts Finland already retired from the first knockout round against Austria.
Many players of the Hungarian team were two years later in the final of the football World Cup in 1954. Among the German players no one was at the '54 World Cup squad, but Georg Stollenwerk belonged to the 58er World Cup squad and played in 1958 all six World Cup matches of the German team.
The tournament
Preliminary round
Second round
Quarterfinals
Semifinal
Play for bronze
Final
Note: While the FIFA no longer count these games as 'A' matches, consider for example DBU, FIGC, NFF, SvFF and USSF these games in the statistics of their senior national teams.