Eight huge footballers who won Olympic medals – including Lionel Messi and Pep Guardiola

While not traditionally on every footballer’s bucket list, some of the world’s top players have won an Olympic medal. It isn’t thought of as a conventional Olympic event, but football has been part of the Games for over a century, making it the oldest and longest-running international competition in the sport.

Over time, many of football’s biggest stars have been drawn to the Olympiad, but since 1992, an age restriction has been implemented, limiting teams to U23s players. In 1996, the rules were tweaked slightly to allow up to three players over the age of 23 in each squad, giving countries the opportunity to showcase their best talent.

With this in mind, The Express is running through eight big names who have won medals at the Olympics.

Messi, Aguero and Di Maria

The 2021 Copa America is often remembered as Lionel Messi’s first triumph at a major international victory, but that’s arguably a common misconception. The little Argentine led his country to glory at the 2008 Beijing Olympics alongside future Manchester City goal-getter Sergio Aguero and soon-to-be Real Madrid star Angel Di Maria.

Messi, who was named the best player at the tournament, scored twice as Argentina clinched gold with a victory over Nigeria in the final. However, he almost didn’t participate. Barcelona initially prevented him from going due to a clash with their Champions League qualifiers that summer. However, newly-appointed Barca boss Pep Guardiola persuaded the club to allow their star player to travel to China. And speaking of Guardiola…

Pep Guardiola

Guardiola’s support for Messi is unsurprising given his own history at the Games. The Manchester City manager was part of the Spain team that won gold in 1992, defeating Poland in the final.

He played in central midfield alongside future Barcelona, Spain and PSG manager Luis Enrique, who was at Real Madrid at the time. Four years later, Enrique moved to Barca, thus reigniting his Olympic partnership with Pep.

Samuel Eto’o

African nations have typically struggled to make it to the latter stages of the World Cup, but this isn’t the case at the Olympics. Teams from the continent have reached the final three times, including Samuel Eto’o’s Cameroon, who won gold in 2000.

Eto’o had just left Real Madrid for Mallorca at the time and was a few years away from becoming the trophy-hoovering goal machine he’d go on to become. On their way to the final, Cameroon knocked out a Brazil side featuring Eto’o’s future Barcelona team-mate Ronaldinho, before defeating Spain in the showpiece, where Eto’o scored his only goal of the campaign.

Xavi and Puyol

Two more of Eto’o’s future Barcelona team-mates, Xavi and Carles Puyol, were on the losing side against Cameroon that day. The youngsters were both masterful at the tournament, but couldn’t secure victory and had to settle for silver medals. This was despite defeating a formidable Italy side featuring Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso and Gianluca Zambrotta in the quarter-finals.

Neymar

Neymar led Brazil to victory at the 2016 Rio Olympics just two years after the country’s devastating 7-1 defeat to Germany at the World Cup on home soil. Playing alongside PSG defender Marquinhos and a young Gabriel Jesus, Neymar scored four goals, including one in the final and two in the semi-final, securing gold for Brazil.

At the time, Neymar was 24 and had recently won his second consecutive La Liga title with Barcelona, having helped the club achieve an historic Treble with Messi and Luis Suarez the previous year.

Spain’s Euro 2024-winning team

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that seven members of the Spanish team that won silver at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago went on to win the European Championship this summer. Interestingly, both teams were managed by the same coach, Luis de la Fuente.

Unai Simon, Marc Cucurella, Martin Zubimendi, Pedri, Mikel Merino, Mikel Oyarzabal and Dani Olmo – all but one of whom featured in Spain’s 2-1 victory over England in Berlin earlier this month – were part of the starting line-up for Spain’s extra time loss to Brazil in the 2021 Olympic final.