Peru Olympic football team

Peru qualified the Olympics for its first time in 1936,^[1] after finishing third in the 1935 South American Championship. Argentina and Uruguay, who had finished ahead, refuse to participate because of economic issues.

Among the line of players featured in this first participation of the Blanquirroja were Alejandro Villanueva, Teodoro Fernández, Juan Valdivieso, and Adelfo Magallanes.^[2] The Peruvian players, after arriving in Germany via an Italian ship, were awestruck by the modern stadiums and the German idolatry of Adolf Hitler.^[1] The first match against Finland was played on 6 August 1936, and was won with great ease by the Peruvians with a 7-3 result.^[2] Peru's next match was against Austria in the quarterfinals. The match was highly contested, and the game went into overtime where the Peruvians tied against the Austrians after being two goals behind. Peru scored 5 goals during overtime, of which 3 were nullified by the referee, and won by a final score of 4-2.^[1]

The Austrians demanded a rematch on the grounds that Peruvian fans had stormed the field, and because the field did not meet the requirements for a football game.^[1][2] Austria further claimed that the Peruvian players had manhandled the Austrian players and that spectators, one holding a revolver, had "swarmed down on the field."^[3] Peru was notified of this situation, and they attempted to go to the assigned meeting but were delayed by a German parade.^[1] At the end, the Peruvian defense was never heard, and the Olympic Committee and FIFA sided with the Austrians. The rematch was scheduled to be taken under close grounds on 10 August, and later rescheduled to be taken on 11 August.^[2][3]

As a sign of protest against these actions, which the Peruvians deemed as insulting and discriminatory, the complete Olympic delegations of Peru and Colombia left Germany.^[4][5] Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Mexico expressed their solidarity with Peru.^[3] Michael Dasso, a member of the Peruvian Olympic Committee, stated: "We've no faith in European athletics. We have come here and found a bunch of merchants."^[6] The game was awarded to Austria by default.^[3] In Peru, angry crowds protested against the decisions of the Olympic Committee by tearing down an Olympic flag, throwing stones at the German consulate, refusing to load German vessels in the docks of Callao, and listening to inflammatory speeches which included President Oscar Benavides Larrea's mention of "the crafty Berlin decision."^[3] To this day, it is not known with certainty what exactly happened in Germany, but it is popularly believed that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi authorities might have had some involvement in the situation.^[5]

After 24 years, Peru once again qualified for the football tournament at the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome with their U-23 football team. It defeated Uruguay in the two-leg play-off round by 6-0 in Lima and then by 3-2 in Montevideo. The five play-off winners faced each other in a special tournament held in Lima in April 1960. Los Incas finished third ahead of Mexico and Suriname and thus qualified for the tournament in Rome.

In their first match of the tournament, Peru started out with a surprise as Angel Uribe scored a 1st-minute goal against France.^[7] Peru would go on to lose 2-1 against the French, and were later beaten by Hungary in a result of 6-2, with only Alberto Ramírez scoring goals for the Blanquirroja.^[8] Their last match was against India, which was a comfortable 3-1 score in favor of the Peruvians with goals by Nicolas Nieri and Thomas Iwasaki.^[9]

Peru has not qualified again to the tournament since 1960, but were close to qualifying again in the 1964 and 1980 CONMEBOL Men Pre-Olympic Tournaments.

An official multi-sport event squad was created once again for the first time since the 1960 Summer Olympics in 2015 for Peru's first participation in the Pan American football tournament held in Canada. Peru had qualified to this tournament once before in 2007. CONMEBOL only accepted to play with Under-17 teams that year (qualified through the 2007 South American Under-17 Football Championship), since the Under-20 teams had to participate in the U-20 World Cup at the same time. Peru declined to participate because the Under-17 team preferred to play friendlies in Asia in preparation of the U-17 World Cup, so Bolivia took its place.

Thus Peru qualified once again in 2015 via the 2015 South American U-20 Championship. That year the top three teams in the final stage of the tournament qualified to the 2016 Olympic tournament and the bottom three to the 2015 Pan American tournament of which Peru finished 5th.

The team's first game was against Panama on July 12. Panama put themselves ahead via Jorman Aguilar at the beginning of the first half. Peru then equalized the score through a goal by Gonzalo Maldonado twelve minutes later. The deadlock was broken in the 90th minute when Elsar Rodas committed a foul against the Panamanian Cecilio Waterman who was awarded a penalty that was converted by Fidel Escobar for a final score of 2–1. The second game was against Brazil with a final score of 4–0 with goals of Luan, Clayton, Rômulo, and Dodô. This was enough to mathematically eliminate Peru out of the tournament before its third game against Canada. During that game Elsar Rodas scored the first and then Manjrekar James scored an own goal in the second half for a final 0–2 against the locals.

Peru qualified to the 2019 tournament as host. It lost its first game by 2–0 against Uruguay. Peru's second game was against Honduras who scored two goals in injury time of the game for a 2–2 draw. Peru's two goals were scored by Kevin Quevedo and Jordan Guivin. On the last match day, Uruguay defeated Honduras by 3–0 which would qualify Peru the second round of the tournament if it was able to defeat Jamaica. In the end Jamaica defeated Peru with two goals in the second half, relegating Peru to the 7th place match against Ecuador. There, a final score of 1–1 forced both teams to decide the match in penalties which Peru won by 4–2 to finish 7th of eight teams.

The Bolivarian Games (Spanish: Juegos Bolivarianos) are a regional multi-sport event held in honor of Simón Bolívar, and organized by the Bolivarian Sports Organization (Organización Deportiva Bolivariana, ODEBO). The games' football tournament has changed category multiple times during the history of the competition with full national teams participatingonly on the first edition in 1938. At times the competition was limited to only amateur sides or youth teams. In 1985 the tournament was played by Under-20 sides. Since 1993 the football tournament is played by U-17 national teams.

Peru won the first tournament which it counts as part of the accomplishments of the senior team. Because of the many changes, all of Peru's accomplishment since then until 1981 are counted as accomplishments of the Olympic team.

  Win   Draw   Loss   Fixture

Colombia  v  Peru

9 December Friendly	Colombia	1–1	Peru	Cartagena, Colombia
17:30 UTC−5	Vargas 45+1'		Guzman 87'	Stadium: Estadio Jaime Morón

Colombia  v  Peru

12 December Friendly	Colombia	3-1	Peru	Baranquilla, Colombia
17:00 UTC−5	Vargas 3' Alzate 29' Castilla 41'		Goicochea 64'	Stadium: Estadio Romelio Martínez

Peru  v  Bolivia

19 December Friendly	Peru	4-0	Bolivia	Lima, Peru
21:00 UTC−5	Guzman 21, 51' Saba 37' (p) Goicochea 74'			Stadium: Villa Deportiva Nacional Referee: Jesús Cartagena (Peru)

Peru  v  Bolivia

22 December Friendly	Peru	1-1	Bolivia	Lima, Peru
15:30 UTC−5	Roca 21'		Carlos 18'	Stadium: Villa Deportiva Nacional Referee: Bruno Pérez (Peru)

Peru  v  Chile

21 January 2024 CONMEBOL Pre-Olympic Tournament	Peru	1-0	Chile	Valencia, Venezuela
15:00 UTC−4	Flores 67'			Stadium: Estadio Misael Delgado Referee: Jhon Ospina (Colombia)

Peru  v  Argentina

24 January 2024 CONMEBOL Pre-Olympic Tournament	Peru	0-2	Argentina	Valencia, Venezuela
19:00 UTC−4			Almada 57' (p) Gondou 87'	Stadium: Estadio Misael Delgado Referee: Gery Vargas (Bolivia)

Paraguay  v  Peru

27 January Pre-Olympic Tournament	Paraguay	1–0	Peru	Valencia, Venezuela
16:00	Fernández 18'	Report		Stadium: Estadio Misael Delgado Referee: Augusto Aragón (Ecuador)

Uruguay  v  Peru

30 January 2024 (2024-01-30) 2024 Pre-Olympic Tournament GS	Uruguay	3–0	Peru	Valencia, Venezuela
16:00 UTC−4	L. Rodríguez 44' (pen.) Homenchenko 45+1' Sánchez 48'	Report		Stadium: Estadio Misael Delgado Referee: Gery Vargas (Bolivia)

The following 23 players were called up for the 2024 CONMEBOL Pre-Olympic Tournament from 20 January to 11 February.

Caps and goals are correct as of 24 January 2024, after the match against Argentina.

No.	Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club
21	1GK	Jeferson Nolasco	(2002-01-24) 24 January 2002 (age 22)	4	0	Cienciano
1	1GK	Diego Romero	(2001-08-17) 17 August 2001 (age 22)	2	0	Universitario
12	1GK	Jhefferson Rodriguez	(2000-03-13) 13 March 2000 (age 24)	0	0	Universitario
7	2DF	Emilio Saba (captain)	(2001-03-26) 26 March 2001 (age 23)	6	1	Mannucci
14	2DF	Marco Huamán	(2002-09-25) 25 September 2002 (age 21)	6	0	Alianza Lima
4	2DF	Erick Noreiga	(2001-07-22) 22 July 2001 (age 22)	5	0	Comerciantes Unidos
15	2DF	Julinho Astudillo	(2005-01-07) 7 January 2005 (age 19)	4	0	Universitario
13	2DF	Mathias Llontop	(2002-05-22) 22 May 2002 (age 22)	4	0	Carlos A. Mannucci
3	2DF	Alejandro Posito	(2005-08-05) 5 August 2005 (age 18)	2	0	Sporting Cristal
2	2DF	Anderson Villacorta	(2005-07-25) 25 July 2005 (age 18)	2	0	Zacatecas
5	2DF	Rafael Lutiger	(2001-07-03) 3 July 2001 (age 22)	2	0	Sporting Cristal
24	2DF	Brian Arias	(2009-09-02) 2 September 2009 (age 14)	1	0	Alianza Lima
8	3MF	Álvaro Rojas	(2005-03-12) 12 March 2005 (age 19)	6	0	Universitario
6	3MF	Ian Wisdom	(2005-09-14) 14 September 2005 (age 18)	5	0	Sporting Cristal
23	3MF	Franchesco Flores	(2001-06-15) 15 June 2001 (age 23)	4	1	Universidad César Vallejo
16	3MF	Eslyn Correa	(2005-06-29) 29 June 2005 (age 18)	2	0	Cusco FC
18	3MF	Alessandro Burlamaqui	(2002-02-18) 18 February 2002 (age 22)	2	0	Intercity
17	4FW	Bassco Soyer	(2006-10-17) 17 October 2006 (age 17)	2	0	Alianza Lima
20	4FW	Juan Pablo Goicochea	(2005-01-12) 12 January 2005 (age 19)	6	1	Platense
9	4FW	Víctor Guzmán	(2006-03-25) 25 March 2006 (age 18)	5	3	Alianza Lima
19	4FW	Guillermo Larios	(2002-05-11) 11 May 2002 (age 22)	4	0	Alianza Atlético
11	4FW	Diether Vásquez	(2003-06-06) 6 June 2003 (age 21)	3	0	UE Santa Coloma

The players listed below were not included in the current squad, but have been called up by Peru in the last 12 months.

• Overage players are denoted with a *

Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club	Latest call-up
GK	Diego Enríquez	(2002-01-24) 24 January 2002 (age 22)	1	0	Binacional	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
GK	Diego Romero	(2001-08-17) 17 August 2001 (age 22)	0	0	Universitario	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
DF	Leonardo Rugel	(2001-06-02) 2 June 2001 (age 23)	1	0	Universitario	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
DF	Anderson Villacorta	(2005-07-25) 25 July 2005 (age 18)	0	0	Universidad César Vallejo	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
MF	Catriel Cabellos	(2004-08-18) 18 August 2004 (age 19)	1	0	Racing	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
MF	Adrián Ascues	(2002-11-15) 15 November 2002 (age 21)	1	0	Deportivo Municipal
MF	Álvaro Rojas	(2005-03-12) 12 March 2005 (age 19)	0	0	Universitario	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
MF	Gonzalo Aguirre	(2003-05-06) 6 May 2003 (age 21)	0	0	Sporting Cristal	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
FW	Didier La Torre	(2002-03-21) 21 March 2002 (age 22)	1	0	Cienciano	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
FW	Kenji Cabrera	(2003-01-27) 27 January 2003 (age 21)	0	0	Melgar	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
FW	Enrique Peña	(2005-04-25) 25 April 2005 (age 19)	0	0	Real Valladolid	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
FW	Tiago Cantoro	(2001-01-06) 6 January 2001 (age 23)	0	0	Cusco	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
FW	Maycol Infante	(2005-07-20) 20 July 2005 (age 18)	0	0	UTC	Mycrocicle #1, 8–16 October 2023
INJ Withdrew due to injury PRE Preliminary squad SUS Suspended WD Withdrew from the squad

• CONMEBOL Pre-Olympic Tournament:
  • Runners-up (1): 1960
  • Third place (2): 1964, 1980
  • Fourth place (1): 1971
• South American Games:
  • Gold Medalists (1): 1990
  • Bronze Medalists (2): 1983, 1994
• Bolivarian Games:
  • Gold Medalists (6): 1938, 1947-48, 1961, 1973, 1981, 2001
  • Silver Medalists (1): 1997
  • Bronze Medalists (4): 1951, 1977, 1985, 2013

• Peru national football team
• Peru national under-20 football team
• Peru national under-17 football team