The team participated in all of the qualification football tournaments for Summer Olympics (except for 1980 when it qualified as hosts).

In order to defend their Olympic title at the Rome Games, the Soviet Union national team had to go through a "selection sieve".

Of the players who took part in the qualifying games, only goalkeeper Boris Razinsky represented the team that won the Melbourne gold.

Notes: According to the results of the draw, the USSR national team got into the third European group of the qualifying tournament for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

The team was headed by Vyacheslav Solovyov, who combined this post with a similar job at CSKA.

Notes: In bold are players and coaches that actually went to Munich, see Olympic team squad for more information.