Australia draw defending champs for Olympic Games finals

The Australian Men’s Under 23 team faces a tough challenge at the 2008 Olympic Games after drawing reigning Champions Argentina, along with Ivory Coast and Serbia at the official draw earlier tonight.

The Australian Men-s Under 23 team faces a tough challenge at the 2008 Olympic Games after drawing reigning Champions Argentina, along with Ivory Coast and Serbia at the official draw earlier tonight.

Ironically, Australia will face two familiar faces from Athens 2004, with both Argentina and Serbia (then known as Serbia & Montenegro) in its group four years ago. On that occasion, Australia qualified second behind Argentina, before bowing out to Iraq in the quarter finals, while Argentina went onto win the final.

Australia will kick-off its 2008 assault on a first Olympic football medal with a match against Serbia in Shanghai on August 7, which is the day before the official opening of the Games.

Next up will be tournament favourites Argentina on August 10, also in Shanghai, with the final game against Ivory Coast in Tianjin on August 13.

The top two qualify for the quarter finals.