The 1972 Olympic football tournament, held in Munich, Augsburg, Ingolstadt, Nuremberg, Passau, and Regensburg, was played as part of the 1972 Summer Olympics.

The tournament features 16 men's national teams from five continental confederations.

At the end of the group stage, the top two teams advanced to the second group stage, where the second-placed teams in each group advanced to the bronze medal match while the first-placed teams advanced to the gold medal match held at Olympiastadion on 10 September 1972.

With nine goals, Kazimierz Deyna of Poland is the top scorer in the tournament.

Hubert Kostka Zbigniew Gut Jerzy Gorgoń Zygmunt Anczok Lesław Ćmikiewicz Zygmunt Maszczyk Jerzy Kraska Kazimierz Deyna Zygfryd Szołtysik Włodzimierz Lubański Robert Gadocha Ryszard Szymczak Antoni Szymanowski Joachim Marx Grzegorz Lato Marian Ostafiński Kazimierz Kmiecik Marian Szeja Coach: Kazimierz Górski István Géczi Péter Vépi Miklós Páncsics Péter Juhász Lajos Szűcs Mihály Kozma Antal Dunai Lajos Kű Béla Váradi Ede Dunai László Bálint Lajos Kocsis Kálmán Tóth László Branikovits József Kovács Csaba Vidács Adám Rothermel Oleh Blokhin Murtaz Khurtsilava Yuriy Istomin Volodymyr Kaplychnyi Viktor Kolotov Yevgeni Lovchev Sergei Olshansky Yevhen Rudakov Vyacheslav Semyonov Gennadi Evryuzhikhin Oganes Zanazanyan Andrei Yakubik Arkady Andreasyan Revaz Dzodzuashvili Yozhef Sabo Yuriy Yeliseyev Volodymyr Onyshchenko Anatoliy Kuksov Vladimir Pilgui Coach: Aleksandr Ponomarev Jürgen Croy Manfred Zapf Konrad Weise Bernd Bransch Jürgen Pommerenke Jürgen Sparwasser Hans-Jürgen Kreische Joachim Streich Wolfgang Seguin Peter Ducke Frank Ganzera Lothar Kurbjuweit Eberhard Vogel Harald Irmscher Ralf Schulenberg Reinhard Häfner Siegmar Wätzlich Coach: Georg Buschner