Botswana

The Botswana National Stadium in Gaborone holds 25,000 people since a renovation finished in 2016 lifted its capacity from 22,000, and it remains the ground where the national team, known as the Zebras, plays its home fixtures. The stripes on the sky-blue home shirt, running down in black with white sleeves, echo the design of the national flag; the away kit reverses the pattern into black horizontal bands on white.

The team traces its life to 1970, the year the Botswana Football Association was formed, though its actual first outing came two years earlier, an 8–1 defeat to Malawi that went unrecognised as an official match. Recognition came gradually after that: Botswana joined the Confederation of African Football in 1976 and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 1978.

The Zebras had to wait until 2012 for their first appearance at the Africa Cup of Nations, and they earned it by finishing top of a qualifying group that included Ghana's neighbours Togo, along with Tunisia, Malawi and Chad. The tournament itself brought three group-stage defeats, to Ghana, Guinea and Mali, but also a moment worth keeping: Dipsy Selolwane's goal against Guinea was the country's first ever at the finals. Botswana did not return to the Cup of Nations until 2025.

Regionally, the record reads better. Botswana reached the final of the COSAFA Cup twice, losing 3–2 to South Africa in 2016 and 1–0 to Zambia in 2019, after third-place finishes in 2006 and 2007.

A continental trophy is still the one thing missing from that record.