2015 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations

2015 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations
2015 Coupe d'Afrique des nations U-23
Tournament details
Host country  Senegal
Dates 28 November – 12 December 2015
Teams 8 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s) 2 (in 2 host cities)
Final positions
Champions  Nigeria (1st title)
Runners-up  Algeria
Third place  South Africa
Fourth place  Senegal
Tournament statistics
Matches played 16
Goals scored 36 (2.25 per match)
Top scorer(s) Nigeria Etebo Oghenekaro (5 goals)
Best player Nigeria Okechukwu Azubuike
Best goalkeeper Algeria Abdelkader Salhi
Fair play award  South Africa

The 2015 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations was the 2nd edition of the Africa U-23 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]

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]

Qualified teams

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
 Algeria 2nd Group stage (2011)
 Egypt 2nd Third place (2011)
 Mali 1st Debut
 Nigeria 2nd Group stage (2011)
 Senegal (hosts) 2nd Fourth place (2011)
 South Africa 2nd Group stage (2011)
 Tunisia 1st Debut
 Zambia 1st Debut

Venues

The tournament was held in two venues.[1]

Dakar
Locations of the 2015 U-23 Afcon venues
 M'Bour
Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor Stade Caroline Faye
Capacity: 60,000 Capacity: 5,000

Squads

For more details on this topic, see 2015 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations squads.

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]

Match officials

A total of 10 referees and 13 assistant referees were selected.[9]

Referees
Assistant referees

Group stage

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.

Tiebreakers

The teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers would be applied in the following order:[8]

  1. Number of points obtained in games between the teams concerned;
  2. Goal difference in games between the teams concerned;
  3. Goals scored in games between the teams concerned;
  4. If, after applying criteria 1 to 3 to several teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 7 apply;
  5. Goal difference in all games;
  6. Goals scored in all games;
  7. Drawing of lots.

All times were local, GMT (UTC±0).[12]

Group A

Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification
1  Senegal (H) 3 3 0 0 6 1 +5 9 Knockout stage
2  South Africa 3 2 0 1 5 5 0 6
3  Tunisia 3 1 0 2 2 4 −2 3
4  Zambia 3 0 0 3 3 6 −3 0
Source: CAF
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Host.

28 November 2015 (2015-11-28)
15:00
Senegal  3–1  South Africa
Keita  15' (pen.), 20'
S. Sarr  87'		 Report Ntshangase  27' (pen.)
Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor, Dakar
Referee: Rédouane Jiyed (Morocco)

28 November 2015 (2015-11-28)
18:00
Zambia  1–2  Tunisia
Kampamba  15' Report Jouini  3', 83'

1 December 2015 (2015-12-01)
15:00
South Africa  3–2  Zambia
Masuku  46'
Motupa  51', 58'		 Report Luchanga  34'
Katema  72'

1 December 2015 (2015-12-01)
18:00
Tunisia  0–2  Senegal
Report Diédhiou  8'
Diallo  84'

4 December 2015 (2015-12-04)
17:00
Senegal  1–0  Zambia
Diallo  3' Report

4 December 2015 (2015-12-04)
17:00
South Africa  1–0  Tunisia
Masuku  85' Report

Group B

Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification
1  Algeria 3 1 2 0 3 1 +2 5 Knockout stage
2  Nigeria 3 1 2 0 5 4 +1 5
3  Mali 3 1 0 2 3 5 −2 3
4  Egypt 3 0 2 1 3 4 −1 2
Source: CAF
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers

29 November 2015 (2015-11-29)
15:00
Egypt  1–1  Algeria
Kahraba  54' Report Chita  68'
Stade Caroline Faye, M'Bour
Referee: Malang Diedhiou (Senegal)

29 November 2015 (2015-11-29)
18:00
Mali  2–3  Nigeria
Niane  55' (pen.)
A. Diarra  64'		 Report Ajayi  15', 45'
Usman  33'
Stade Caroline Faye, M'Bour
Referee: Hamada Nampiandra (Madagascar)

2 December 2015 (2015-12-02)
15:00
Algeria  2–0  Mali
Ferhat  72'
Y. Traoré  83' (o.g.)		 Report
Stade Caroline Faye, M'Bour
Referee: Joshua Bondo (Botswana)

2 December 2015 (2015-12-02)
18:00
Nigeria  2–2  Egypt
Oghenekaro  20' (pen.), 30' (pen.) Report Sobhi  47'
Elsayed  51'
Stade Caroline Faye, M'Bour
Referee: Antoine Effa (Cameroon)

5 December 2015 (2015-12-05)
17:00
Egypt  0–1  Mali
Report Coulibaly  18'
Stade Caroline Faye, M'Bour
Referee: Hudu Munyemana (Rwanda)

5 December 2015 (2015-12-05)
17:00
Algeria  0–0  Nigeria
Report
Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor, Dakar
Referee: Malang Diedhiou (Senegal)

Knockout stage

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]

Bracket

 
Semi-finalsFinal
 
      
 
9 December – Dakar
 
 
 Senegal0
 
12 December – Dakar
 
 Nigeria1
 
 Nigeria2
 
9 December – Dakar
 
 Algeria1
 
 Algeria2
 
 
 South Africa0
 
Third Place
 
 
12 December – Dakar
 
 
 Senegal0 (1)
 
 
 South Africa (p)0 (3)

Semi-finals

Winners qualified for 2016 Summer Olympics.

9 December 2015 (2015-12-09)
15:00
Senegal  0–1  Nigeria
Report Oghenekaro  76' (pen.)
Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor, Dakar
Referee: Redouane Jiyed (Morocco)

9 December 2015 (2015-12-09)
18:30
Algeria  2–0  South Africa
Darfalou  8'
Benkhemassa  49'		 Report

Third place play-off

Winner qualified for 2016 Summer Olympics.

12 December 2015 (2015-12-12)
16:00
Senegal  0–0  South Africa
Report
  Penalties  
Badji
Diaw
I. Sarr
S. Sarr 		1–3 Motupa
Mngonyama
Masuku
Dolly
Mahlambi
Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor, Dakar
Referee: Hudu Munyemana (Rwanda)

Final

12 December 2015 (2015-12-12)
19:00
Nigeria  2–1  Algeria
Oghenekaro  14' (pen.), 40' Report Tope  30' (o.g.)
Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor, Dakar
Referee: Hamada Nampiandra (Madagascar)

Winners

 2015 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations 

Nigeria
First title

Final ranking

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.

Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Final result
1st, gold medalist(s)  Nigeria 5 3 2 0 8 5 +3 11 Champions
2nd, silver medalist(s)  Algeria 5 2 2 1 6 3 +3 8 Runners-up
3rd, bronze medalist(s)  South Africa 5 2 1 2 5 7 −2 7 Third place
4  Senegal (H) 5 3 1 1 6 2 +4 10 Fourth place
5  Mali 3 1 0 2 3 5 −2 3 Eliminated in
Group stage
6  Tunisia 3 1 0 2 2 4 −2 3
7  Egypt 3 0 2 1 3 4 −1 2
8  Zambia 3 0 0 3 3 6 −3 0
Source: CAF
(H) Host.

Qualified teams for Olympics

The following three teams from CAF qualified for the Olympic football tournament.

Team Qualified on Previous appearances in tournament1
 Nigeria 9 December 2015 6 (1968, 1980, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2008)
 Algeria 9 December 2015 1 (1980)
 South Africa 12 December 2015 1 (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).

Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:[13]

Goalscorers

5 goals
2 goals
1 goal
1 own goal
  • Mali Youssouf Traoré (playing against Algeria)
  • Nigeria Oduduwa Segun Tope (playing against Algeria)

References

External links

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