Kenya

Kenya first put a team on a pitch on 1 May 1926, against Uganda in Nairobi. That came in 1960, when the Kenya Football Federation formed and secured entry to FIFA the same year, joining the Confederation of African Football in 1961.

The team's record at the Africa Cup of Nations reads as seven appearances, from 1972 through a 2019 return after a long absence, and a group stage exit each time. In the CECAFA Cup, Kenya has won the title seven times, with runs of success bunched under specific coaches — Marshall Mulwa took three of those titles in a row. Reinhard Fabisch, a German who took charge in the late 1980s, remains attached to the one AFCON campaign, in 1988, that the team reached through anything other than the group draw of qualifiers.

Michael Olunga sits second on the all-time scoring list with 32 goals, behind William Ouma's 35, but it is Olunga's career in Japan and Qatar that has kept his name in front of Kenyan fans in recent years. Victor Wanyama and McDonald Mariga carried the shirt into competitions the country's football had not touched before — Mariga became the first Kenyan to play in the UEFA Champions League.

Matches against Tanzania carry their own weight, played as the Kenya–Tanzania derby regardless of what else is at stake. Home games move between Nyayo National Stadium and the Moi International Sports Centre in Nairobi, the larger of the two since renovation work finished in 2024 and pushed its capacity to 48,063.