Angola U23

Angola have never sent an under-23 side to the finals of the Africa U23 Cup of Nations, and the closest they came was in 2019, when qualification ended against South Africa: 1-3 away, 0-3 at home, 4-1 on aggregate. That result stands as the only documented meeting the age group has left behind since the team was set up in 1991 under the Angolan Football Federation, which runs the programme out of Luanda.

The side carries the same identity as every other Angolan national team, senior or junior: red shirt, black shorts, red socks at home, all black away, and the nickname Black Antelopes that Angolan radio extends to the age-group sides by calling them, specifically, the Palancas Negras em sub-23. There is no separate under-23 strip or badge to speak of — the younger side simply steps into the senior template.

It also steps into the senior ground. The Estádio Nacional 11 de Novembro in Talatona, built for the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations and referred to in Angola as the cathedral of the national game, holds close to 48,500 and hosts the U23s on the rare occasions they have a home fixture, as it did again once renovation work there was finished in 2021. Four editions of the continental U23 tournament have been played since 2011, in Morocco twice, in Senegal and in Egypt, and Angola has missed every one. They were absent, too, from qualification for the Paris Olympics, leaving the age group with no fixtures to build a current run on. The federation's task now is the same one it has faced through four failed campaigns: get a group through qualifying and onto the continental stage at least once.