| Tourney Name: | U-23 Africa Cup of Nations |
| Year: | 2015 |
| Other Titles: | 2015 Coupe d'Afrique des nations U-23 |
| Num Teams: | 8 |
| Confederations: | 1 |
| Venues: | 2 |
| Cities: | 2 |
| Count: | 1 |
| Matches: | 16 |
| Goals: | 36 |
| Player: |  Azubuike Okechukwu |
| Goalkeeper: | Abdelkader Salhi |
| Prevseason: | 2011 |
| Nextseason: | 2019 |
The 2015 U-23 Africa Cup of Nations was the 2nd edition of the U-23 Africa Cup of Nations, the quadrennial international age-restricted football championship organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for the men's under-23 national teams of Africa. The tournament started on 28 November and finished on 12 December 2015.[1] A total of eight teams are playing in the tournament.
The tournament was initially scheduled to take place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 5–19 December 2015.[2] [3] However, CAF changed the hosts and requested Senegal to host the tournament instead,[4] and the tournament dates were also changed.
On 6 August 2015, the CAF Executive Committee decided to change the name of the tournament from the CAF U-23 Championship to the Africa U-23 Cup of Nations, similar to the senior's version, Africa Cup of Nations.[5]
Same as the previous edition, the tournament acted as the CAF qualifiers for the Olympic football tournament. The top three teams of the tournament qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics men's football tournament in Brazil as the CAF representatives.[6]
Nigeria won the tournament with a 1–0 final win over Algeria. Both finalists and third-placed South Africa qualified for the Olympics.[7]
See main article: article and 2015 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations qualification.
Senegal qualified automatically as hosts, while the remaining seven spots were determined by the qualifying rounds, which took place from April to August 2015.[3]
The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament. Defending champions Gabon failed to qualify after they lost to Mali.
| Team | Appearance | Previous best performance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| (2011) | |||
| (2011) | |||
| (2011) | |||
| (hosts) | (2011) | ||
| (2011) | |||
The tournament was held in two venues.[1]
| Dakar | M'Bour | |
|---|---|---|
| Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor | Stade Caroline Faye | |
| Capacity: 60,000 | Capacity: 5,000 | |
Players born on or after 1 January 1993 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each squad could contain a maximum of 21 players.[8]
A total of 10 referees and 13 assistant referees were selected.[9]
The draw for the final tournament of the competition took place on 14 September 2015, 11:00 UTC+2, at the CAF headquarters in Cairo.[5] The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four.[10] For the draw, the hosts Senegal were seeded in position A1 and the previous tournament's best-placed qualified team Egypt were seeded in position B1. The remaining six teams were drawn from one pot to fill the other positions in the two groups.[11]
The top two teams of each group advanced to the semi-finals.
All times were local, GMT (UTC±0).[12]
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In the knockout stage, if a match was level at the end of normal playing time, extra time would be played (two periods of 15 minutes each) and followed, if necessary, by kicks from the penalty mark to determine the winner, except for the third place match where no extra time would be played.[8]
Winners qualified for 2016 Summer Olympics.
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Winner qualified for 2016 Summer Olympics.
As per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.
The following three teams from CAF qualified for the Olympic football tournament.
| Team | Qualified on | Previous appearances in tournament1 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| (1968, 1980, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2008) | |||
| (1980) | |||
| (2000) |
1 Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year. Statistics include all Olympic format (current Olympic under-23 format started in 1992).
The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:[13]
Azubuike Okechukwu Etebo Oghenekaro – 5 goals Junior Ajayi
Mouhamadou Diallo Ibrahima Keita
Haythem Jouini
Mamdouh Elsayed Kahraba Ramadan Sobhi
Souleymane Coulibaly Abdoulaye Diarra Adama Niane Mohammed Usman Ibrahima Diédhiou Sidy Sarr Youssouf Traoré (playing against Algeria) Oduduwa Segun Tope (playing against Algeria)