The 2011 African U-23 Championship was the first edition of the football tournament for players under 23 years. It was originally scheduled to be hosted by Egypt from 26 November to 10 December 2011. However, less than two months prior to the start of the tournament, Egyptian authorities decided against hosting the competition because of security concerns. On 13 October 2011, Morocco was chosen as the replacement to host the tournament. The tournament also doubles up as the qualifiers for the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

. The top 3 placed teams qualified automatically for the 2012 Summer Olympics football tournament, while the 4th best placed team qualify for a play-off with an AFC counterpart.

Qualified teams

The Confederation of African Football chose to create a tournament and qualifying phase to decide which associations could represent Africa at the 2012 Olympic Games. Of CAF's 53 association nations, 39 agreed to participate in the qualifiers for the tournament. To qualify for the tournament, participating nations had to overcome three two-legged qualifying stages. Qualified teams: * * * * * * * *

Venues

Draw

The draw for the tournament was held on 24 September 2011 during the CAF Executive Committee meeting in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

, Egypt.

Match officials

The following referees were chosen for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.

Squads

Group stage

''All times given as local time ( UTC)'' If two or more teams tied in their points, the following tie-breaker is used: # Points in the matches between the concerned teams, # Goal difference in the matches between the concerned teams, # Number of goals in the matches between the concerned teams, # Goal difference in all group matches, # Number of goals in all group matches, # Fair Play point (number of yellow and red cards), # Drawing of lots.

Group A

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Group B

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Knockout stage

''All times given as local time (

UTC+1 UTC+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 ** B ...

)''

Semi-finals

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Third place play-off

Final

Best eleven

The team of the tournament with substitutes: *

Goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

Ahmed El Shenawy Ahmed Nasser Nasser Mahmoud Moawad El Shenawy ( ar, أحمد ناصر ناصر محمود معوض الشناوي; born 14 May 1991), is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Egyptian Premier League side Pyramids and t ...

* Defenders: Mahan Marc Goua, Moaz El-Henawy, Remy Ebanega,

Zakarya Bergdich Zakarya Bergdich ( ar, زكرياء برݣديش; born 7 January 1989) is a professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Turkish club Erzurumspor. Born in France, he represents Morocco at full international level, and played at the 2012 S ...

Midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

s: Sameehg Doutie, Hossam Hassan,

Abdelaziz Barrada Abdelaziz Barrada (Arabic: عبد العزيز برادة; born 19 June 1989), sometimes known just as Abdel, is a professional footballer who plays as a midfielder. Born in France, he represented Morocco at international level. Club career Geta ...

, Raheem Lawal * Forwards:

Youness Mokhtar Youness Mokhtar ( ar, يونس مختار; born 29 August 1991) is a professional footballer who plays as a winger for Liga 1 club Bhayangkara. Born in the Netherlands, Mokhtar has represented both his native country and Morocco internationall ...

Abdoulaye Sané Abdoulaye Sané (born 15 October 1992) is a Senegalese professional footballer who plays as a forward for Churchill Brothers in the I-League. Career Sané began his career with AS Douanes in the Senegal Premier League. In the summer of 2011, ...

* Subs: Ousmane Mané (GK); Ahmed Hegazy and

Mohamed Salah Mohamed Salah Hamed Mahrous Ghaly ( ar, محمد صلاح حامد محروس غالي, ; born 15 June 1992), also known as Mo Salah, is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Liverpool and captains the Egypt na ...

Allen Nono Allen Dorian Nono (born 15 August 1992 in Port-Gentil) is a Gabonese professional footballer who plays as a forward for AS Pélican. He made six appearances for the Gabon national team between 2012 and 2016 and competed at the 2012 Summer Olympic ...

, Laglais Xavier Kouassi and Jean Michael Seri,

Soufiane Bidaoui Soufiane Bidaoui (born 20 April 1990) is a Moroccan professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Italian club Frosinone. Club career Born in Etterbeek, Belgium, Bidaoui has played club football in Belgium for Westerlo, Roeselare and Li ...

and Adnane Tighadouini,

Danny Uchechi Chima Daniel "Danny" Uchechi (born 14 September 1989) is a Nigerian football forward for Rayners Lane. Career Uchechi was born in Abia State and moved to England in 2002. Uchechi scored 13 goals with the Charlton Athletic under-18 team, then ...

, Mohamed Chalali

Goalscorers

;3 goals *

* Raheem Lawal ;2 goals * Ahmed Shroyda * Emmanuel Ndong Mba *

;1 goal *

Mehdi Benaldjia Mehdi Benaldjia (born May 14, 1991 in Algiers) is an Algerian football player. Personal Benaldjia is the younger brother of footballer Mohamed Billel Benaldjia. International career On November 16, 2011, he was selected as part of Algeria's sq ...

Baghdad Bounedjah Baghdad Bounedjah ( ar, بغداد بونجاح, born 24 November 1991) is an Algerian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Qatar Stars League club Al Sadd and the Algeria national team. Throughout his club career, Bounedjah has ...

* Georges Henri Griffiths * Moussa Koné *

Lacina Traoré Lacina Traoré (born 20 May 1990) is an Ivorian professional Association football, footballer who last played as a Forward (association football), forward for Portuguese club Varzim S.C. He is nicknamed “The Big Tree”, due to his 2.03m fra ...

Ahmed Magdi Ahmed Magdy Saad Mohamed ( ar, أحـمد مجـدي سعد محمد; born 9 December 1989) is an Egyptian footballer, who plays for El Gouna FC El Gouna Football Club ( ar, نادي الجونة لكرة القدم), is an Egyptian associati ...

* Marwan Mohsen *

Mohamed Elneny Mohamed Naser Elsayed Elneny (; born 11 July 1992) is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for club Arsenal and the Egypt national team. Elneny began his senior career in the Egyptian Premier League, before m ...

* Saleh Gomaa * Johan Diderot Lengoualama *

* Landry Obiang Obiang *

André Biyogo Poko André Ivan Biyogo Poko (born 7 March 1993) is a Gabonese professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Saudi Arabian club Al-Khaleej and the Gabon national team. He was part of the Gabon national team in the 2021 AFCON tournament in ...

Lionel Yacouya __TOC__ Lionel may refer to: Name *Lionel (given name) Places *Lionel, Lewis, a village in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland *Lionel Town, Jamaica, a settlement Brands and enterprises *Lionel, LLC, an American designer and importer of toy trains and mo ...

* Adnane Tighadouini *

Kara Mbodj Serigne Modou Kara Mbodji (born 22 November 1989), commonly known as Kara or Kara Mbodji, is a Senegalese professional Association football, footballer who plays for Al-Sailiya SC, Al-Sailiya and the Senegal national football team, Senegal nation ...

Omar Wade Omar Wade (born 15 May 1990) is a Senegalese professional footballer who plays as a forward. Career Born in Dakar, Wade trained with the academy of Diambars before signing professional with French club Lille. He made his senior debut for Lille ...

Phumelele Bhengu Phumelele Ace Bhengu (born 19 November 1989) is a South African footballer who plays as a winger or centre forward for Tshakhuma Madzivhandila. Club career Moroka Swallows 5 years after joining Moroka Swallows' youth academy at the age of ...

Mandla Masango Mandla Masango (born July 18, 1989) is a South African footballer who most recently played as a right winger for Randers in Denmark. Masango represented South Africa at various youth levels and has been a full international since making his sen ...

Criticisms

Some have questioned the need for the tournament and believe that the CAF-organised Under-23 football tournament, the

2011 All-Africa Games The 10th All-Africa Games took place between September 3–18, 2011 in Maputo, Mozambique. Maputo's hosting marked the third time the Games was held in the southern part of the continent. Host awarding In April 2005, Lusaka, Zambia was named t ...

' football tournament should have been used as a qualifying tournament. The increase in number of national U-23 fixtures caused some domestic league schedules to be revised and some league games took place with weakened teams. There has been criticism from fans towards clubs who have not allowed their players to participate in the qualifying stages as the tournament is not featured on the

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

Calendar whilst the Olympics tournament is. In effect this means that African nations can call on European-based players for the Olympic tournament who were not able to participate in qualifying due to club commitments.

Qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics

* * *

Inter-continental play-off

* – qualified for an inter-continental play-off against the fourth representative of the Pre-Olympic Tournament in Asian zone