The 2023 U-23 Africa Cup of Nations, known for sponsorship purposes as the

TotalEnergies TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and is one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas explorati ...

U-23 Africa Cup of Nations, was the 4th edition of the quadrennial African

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament organized by the

Confederation of African Football The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is the administrative and controlling body for association football, beach soccer, and futsal in Africa. It was established on 8 February 1957 at the ''Grand Hotel'' in Khartoum, Sudan. At the FIFA Co ...

(CAF) for its male national teams consisting of players under 23 years of age. It was held in

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

between 24 June and 8 July 2023. It was the second time that Morocco hosted the tournament, as they were the inaugural hosts back in

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

. The finalists and third-place playoff winner of this edition of the tournament qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics men's football tournament in

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while the 4th-placed team will play the AFC–CAF playoff to decide the final Olympic slot.

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

were the defending champions, but failed to defend their title after a 2–1 loss to hosts

in the final, although both were guaranteed qualification to the Olympic football tournament alongside

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

who won their third-place match against

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

, who would later also qualify for the Olympics after emerging victorious in the playoff against the 4th-placed team from Asia,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. With the win, Morocco repeated the feat achieved at the

2018 African Nations Championship The 2018 African Nations Championship, known as the 2018 CHAN for short and for sponsor (commercial), sponsorship purposes as the TotalEnergies, Total African Nations Championship, was the 5th edition of the biennial association football tournam ...

by hosting and winning a tournament at the same time.

Qualification

qualified automatically as hosts, while the remaining 7 spots were determined by the qualifying rounds which took place on a home-and-away

two-legged In sports (especially association football), a two-legged tie is a contest between two teams which comprises two matches or "legs", with each team as the home team in one leg. The winning team is usually determined by aggregate score, the sum of ...

basis from 21 September 2022 to 28 March 2023.

Qualified teams

The following teams qualified for the group stage.

Venues

The matches were contested at two venues; the

Ibn Batouta Stadium The Ibn Batouta Stadium or Grand stade of Tangier (; Berber languages: ⴰⵏⵏⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⴱⵏ ⴱⴰⵜⵓⵜⴰ) is a multi-use stadium in Tangier, Morocco. It is used mostly for football (soccer), football matches and big events such as c ...

Tangier Tangier ( ; , , ) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The city is the capital city, capital of the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, as well as the Tangier-Assilah Prefecture of Moroc ...

and the

Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium (, , ) is a football stadium under construction, it is part of a larger sports complex with an athletics track and field stadium, an indoor arena named the Salle Moulay Abdellah and an Olympic swimming pool in R ...

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ) is the Capital (political), capital city of Morocco and the List of cities in Morocco, country's seventh-largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million. ...

Squads

Draw

The draw was held on 5 May 2023 at 17:00

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(

UTC+1 +01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time * West Africa Time * Western European Summer Time **Brit ...

) at the Mohammed VI Football Academy in

Salé Salé (, ) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town. Along with some smaller nearby towns, Rabat and Salé form together a single m ...

. The 8 teams were drawn into two groups of four teams, with hosts

seeded in Group A (position A1) and the defending champions

seeded in Group B (position B1). The remaining 6 teams were allocated to two pots based on the results of the previous tournament edition and were drawn to the remaining positions.

Match officials

Referees * Clement Franklin Kpan * Mahmoud Nagy * Pierre Ghislain Atcho * Jalal Jayed * Omar Abdulkadir Artan * Abongile Tom * Adalbert Diouf * Youcef Gamouh * Patrice Mebiame * Lamin Jammeh * Muhammad Elmabrouk Assistant Referees * Stephen Yiembe * Joel Wonka Doe * Sami Halal * Styven Moutsassi * Abdessamad Abertoune * Wael Hannachi * Adel Abane * Jhonathan Ahonto Koffi * Dimbiniaina Andriatianarivelo * Youssef Mahmoud * Igho Hope * Hamza Naciri Video Assistant Referees * Maria Rivet * Mohamed Hussien * Dahane Beida * Letticia Antonella Wiana * Mustapha Ghorbal * Haytem Guirat * Peter Waweru * Adil Zourak

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advanced to the semi-finals. ;Tiebreakers Teams were ranked according to points; 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and none for a loss. If tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied in the order given to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 68): #Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #

Goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #If more than two teams were tied and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams; #Goal difference in all group matches; #Goals scored in all group matches; #Drawing of lots. All times are local,

(

Group A

---- ----

Group B

---- ----

Knockout stage

Bracket

Semi-finals

The winners qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics. ----

Third-place match

The winner (

) joined the finalists in qualifying for the

2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...

and the loser (

) will play in the AFC–CAF play-off.

Final

Winners

Final ranking

Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of this edition of the tournament:

Team of the tournament

The team of the tournament was announced by the CAF after the final.

Goalscorers

Qualified teams for the 2024 Summer Olympics

The following four teams from CAF qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympic men's football tournament in France.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:U-23 Africa Cup of Nations, 2023 2023 U-23 Africa Cup of Nations 2023 in African football Football at the 2024 Summer Olympics – Men's qualification International association football competitions hosted by Morocco

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

2022–23 in Moroccan football 2023–24 in Moroccan football June 2023 sports events in Africa July 2023 sports events in Africa