Ethiopia U23

Bahir Dar International Stadium sits on the shore of Lake Tana, built with room for up to 60,000 people, and it is here rather than in the capital that Ethiopia's Under-23 side has tended to play when a tournament actually comes to the country. The ground hosted the 2021 CECAFA U-23 Challenge Cup, and for a squad with no fixed home of its own — Addis Ababa Stadium serves the same purpose when matches are scheduled there instead — a big venue on a big lake says something about how rarely these players get to perform in front of a crowd that has travelled specifically for them.

The Walias, as the age-group side borrows its nickname from the senior team's Walia ibex, exist under a federation that dates to 1943 and that helped found the Confederation of African Football in 1957. In Bahir Dar in 2021, Ethiopia drew 3-3 with Eritrea and 1-1 with Burundi in the group stage and went home in seventh place out of nine, a finish that reads as ordinary until it is set against a wider record with no continental or regional Under-23 title to show for it.

Atenafu Alemu took over as head coach in September 2022, inheriting a group whose most recognisable names had already been shaped by Olympic qualifying rather than by CECAFA: forward Israel Eshetu, born in 2000, was among the players who came through the 2019 qualifiers.