Peru Olympic football team (also known as Peru under-23, Peru U23) represents Peru in international football competitions in multi-sport events such as the Olympic Games and the Pan American Games. The selection is limited to players under the age of 23, except three overage players. The team is controlled by the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF). Peru has participated in two Olympic football tournaments and two Pan American football tournaments under this category.
The squad requirements to participate in the Summer Olympics has changed multiple times through the history of the competition. Since 1992, squads for Football at the Summer Olympics have been restricted to three players over the age of 23 with similar changes occurring in the Pan American Games in 1999. The achievements of such teams are not usually included in the statistics of the international team.
Peru played in the 1936 edition of the Olympic Games in Berlin, but it was with the A team.
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 6âÂÂ0 in Lima and then by 3âÂÂ2 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. Peru would go on to lose 2âÂÂ1 against the French, and were later beaten by Hungary in a result of 6âÂÂ2, with only Alberto RamÃÂrez scoring goals for the Blanquirroja. Their last match was against India, which was a comfortable 3âÂÂ1 score in favor of the Peruvians with goals by Nicolas Nieri and Thomas Iwasaki.
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 2âÂÂ1. The second game was against Brazil with a final score of 4âÂÂ0 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 0âÂÂ2 against the locals.
Peru qualified to the 2019 tournament as host. It lost its first game by 2âÂÂ0 against Uruguay. Peru's second game was against Honduras who scored two goals in injury time of the game for a 2âÂÂ2 draw. Peru's two goals were scored by Kevin Quevedo and Jordan Guivin. On the last match day, Uruguay defeated Honduras by 3âÂÂ0 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 1âÂÂ1 forced both teams to decide the match in penalties which Peru won by 4âÂÂ2 to finish 7th of eight teams.
The Bolivarian Games (Spanish: Juegos Bolivarianos) are a regional multi-sport event held in honor of Simón BolÃÂvar, 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 participating only on the first edition in 1938. At times the competition was limited to only amateur sides or youth teams:
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.
The players listed below were not included in the current squad, but have been called up by Peru in the last 12 months.
<sup>INJ</sup> Withdrew due to injury<br/> <sup>PRE</sup> Preliminary squad<br> <SUP>SUS</sup> Suspended<br/> <sup>WD</sup> Withdrew from the squad