The Olympics opening ceremony will start on Friday, but the men’s soccer tournament kicked off two days before, and it definitely delivered.

Unlike other international soccer tournaments, the Olympics made every team participating play on the same day. There are four different time slots, and two games kick off simultaneously on each time slot.

With so many games playing on the same day, and with crazy stoppage times on each game, we saw a lot of action. Let’s take a look at them group by group.

Group A

The group A kicked off with Guinea and New Zealand.

New Zealand got an early penalty in the 24th minute. However, their captain and star player, Matthew Garbett, ended up putting it wide.

Fortunately for him though, because of the Guinean keeper’s mistake, he got another chance to score a minute later. This time, he made no mistake as he glided past a couple of defenders and put the ball in the back of the net.

Guinea pushed and pushed for an equalizer and finally got it in the 72nd minute. New Zealand would take the lead again just four minutes later, and this time, they hanged on.

It’s a vey valuable win for New Zealand and a confidence booster before taking on the U.S. this Saturday.

Then, we got the host country France kicking off their campaign in Marseille against the U.S. in front of over 60,000 fans.

Thierry Henry’s side didn’t really impress in the first half, and the score was even. Then in the start of the second half, the U.S. midfielder Djordje Mihailovic’s long distant strike came very close to a goal but just bounced off the bar.

That seemed like a wake-up call for France. Few minutes later, their captain Alexandre Lacazette scored from a long distance strike to take the lead.

The U.S. had some great chances to equalize. Paxten Aaronson’s header was saved by the French keeper and John Tolkin’s close range header also hit the post.

Then, France scored again. This time it was Michael Olise with another long distance strike.

With the scoreline being 2-0, the U.S. lost their momentum and in the 85th minute, they allowed another goal. Miles Robinson lost his man during a corner kick due to a mess in the box and Loic Badé scored from a wide open header to make it 3-0.

Griffin Yow scored an excellent consolation goal at the end for the U.S. but it was ruled offside. The U.S. now have all to do and get a result against New Zealand this Saturday.

Group B

One of the craziest soccer games happened today: Morocco vs Argentina.

The game already had an amazing atmosphere before the game as Moroccan fans took over the stadium. The Argentinian anthem was loudly jeered, especially after the recent racist chant against French players with African descent. 

Moroccan fans in the stadium today were mostly people born in France with a Moroccan background.

Moroccan team fed off the energy from their fans and dominated Argentina for the large stretch of the game, taking a 2-0 lead by the 49th minute.

Argentina finally showed up and started pushing for goals. They got their first goal in the 68th minute but unable to score another one by the 90th minute.

Then, something happened that puzzled everyone watching. The referee added 15 minutes of stoppage time in a game that didn’t really have anything major happen that ate up a lot of time.

Argentina ended up scoring their equalizer in the 16th minute of stoppage time, which was a crazy sequence. Thiago Almada’s long distance shot bounced off of the Moroccan keeper, and when Nicolas Otamendi tried to score from the rebound, it hit the keeper first and then bounced off of the bar. Bruno Amione tried to head the ball in when it came to him and it bounced off the bar again but landed straight at Cristian Medina— who finally put it in the net.

The Argentinian players went crazy with celebrations, but the Moroccan fans were furious. There were people coming onto the pitch, things were being thrown at Argentinian players, and there were smoke bombs everywhere. Players and referees got off the pitch quickly and people just assumed the game has ended since it already went a couple minutes over the given stoppage time.

The official match blog said the game finished and fans were told to leave the stadium right away. 

Now, here comes the craziest part.

The officials would later announce the game had not ended yet, and it was only temporarily suspended due to fan violence. Players were told to wait in the dressing room, with reports of Argentina’s equalizer possibly being offside began circulating.

90 minutes after everyone got off the pitch, the players were told to come back on to finish playing the last couple of minutes in front of zero supporters. The game restarted with the referee checking the VAR review and ruling out the Argentina equalizer for being offside.

The game finally ended four hours after it kicked off. Argentina coach Javier Mascherano said after the game that he’s never seen anything like this, and he’s played for two decades in many different leagues.

The other game in the group featured two countries that have gone though very tough times: Iraq and Ukraine, the former having dealt with wars for a long time and the latter dealing with a war right now.

Iraq came from behind to get a 2-1 win in their opening game. The players were very emotional celebrating the victory after the match, and they will be hoping to get to the quarterfinals after earning three points today.

Group C

This group saw two teams making their Olympics debut— Uzbekistan and Dominican Republic.

Uzbekistan have been doing excellent with their youth teams, reaching the final in the U-23 Asian Cup. They also did well in the U-20 World Cup last year, so many young players there have a good experience playing in international tournaments.

They weren't scared today and played a great game against Spain, a team that featured two players who recently won the Euros. Although they lost the game 2-1, scoring a goal against Spain was a plus and they would now feel confident going into the next two games.

Dominican Republic, a country mostly known for their baseball, are coming into this Olympics with 16 Europe-based players. They have been working hard to recruit players across Europe and the U.S. that are eligible for the team, and soccer in the country is also growing.

Their efforts paid off and this was a proud moment for all Dominicans. In their first ever Olympics soccer game, they played well against Egypt, who qualified to this tournament by finishing second place in the U-23 African Cup of Nations. 

It ended in a 0-0 draw, but both teams can walk away thinking that they still have a good chance to reach the knockout stage from this group.

Group D

Japan U-23s were impressive before the tournament, winning the U-23 Asian Cup with ease. They also went to Kansas City and played the U.S. off the park and then drew with France in France.

The coaching staff trust their young guys so much to the point they decided to not call up any overage players, and it’s looking like a good move so far. They started off their campaign in a 5-0 win over South American champions Paraguay.

Although Paraguay had a player sent off in the first half, Japan were already winning and outplaying them. The Asian champions should be one of the favorites to win Gold this summer.

Meanwhile, Mali and Israel played out a 1-1 draw in the other game.

This is Israel’s first appearance in the Olympics soccer since 1976, and they started off well by taking the lead after a Mali defender scored an own goal.

Just few minutes later though, Mali got their equalizer and the two teams ended up sharing a point each.