Guinea secure final ticket to Paris 2024. FIFA

Guinea's U-23 football team booked their place at the Olympic tournament in Paris with a play-off victory over Indonesia. Ilaix Moriba scored the only goal of the match in the French town of Clairefontaine.

The African side beat Indonesia 1-0 in a play-off to become the sixteenth and final qualifier for the men's tournament in Paris. Guinea overcame an Indonesian side that had squandered three chances to secure a place at Paris 2024 after causing an upset by knocking out South Korea in the quarter-finals (10-11 on penalties). From there, their only losses were to Uzbekistan (2-1) and Iraq (2-1), ending their dream of returning to the Olympics for the first time in almost seven decades (the USSR was excluded them from Melbourne 1956).

The men's football tournament, which runs from 24 July to 9 August, thus concluded with the 16 qualifying matches. For the winners, Getafe's Ilaix Moriba (whose rights are owned by Leipzig) scored the only goal of the match from the penalty spot in the 29th minute of the first half to book his country's place in the sixteenth and final qualifying round for the men's tournament in Paris. It will be their second appearance at an Olympic men's football tournament, having made their only appearance in 1968.



With this victory, the African nation will join Egypt, Morocco and Mali in representing their continent in Paris 2024, where they will share Group A with local giants France (with the possibility that their megastar Kylian Mbappé, who has even been called up by President Emmanuel Macron, could take part in an attempt to win a second gold medal for his country after the one he won in Los Angeles in 1984).

Guinea are in a group with the USA and New Zealand and must finish second if they are to realise their dream of bringing gold back to Africa for the first time in 24 years - Nigeria at Atlanta 96 and Cameroon at Sydney 2000 were the last teams to do so.


Draw for the Men's Olympic Football Tournament:

Group A: France, USA, Guinea and New Zealand.

Group B: Argentina, Morocco, Ukraine and Iraq.

Group C: Spain, Egypt, Dominican Republic and Uzbekistan.

Group D: Paraguay, Mali, Israel and Japan.


Format:

The 16 teams are divided into four groups of four. The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. This is followed by quarter-finals, semi-finals, a third-place play-off and the final.