Since Africa's first participation in Olympic football, at the 1920 Games in Antwerp, Belgium, the tournament has offered a platform for some of the continent's brightest talents to establish themselves.
Without the glare of the World Cup, and in a tournament predominantly featuring under-23 players, African teams have thrived -- with both Nigeria and Cameroon men winning gold medals.
Some of the continent's all-time greats have burst onto the scene at the Olympic Games , while others appeared to have the world at their feet only to fade into obscurity.
Here's what happened next for some of Africa's Olympic football stars.
Kwame Ayew ( Ghana , 1992)
Olympic Star : It took 72 years of African participation in the men's tournament to get on the podium, with 1992 bronze medalists Ghana finally ending the wait.
In a squad featuring Nii Lamptey, future national team head coach Maxwell Konadu and 2001 UEFA Champions League winner Sammy Kuffour, Ayew proved the standout.
Then with Metz , the teenage brother of Abedi Pele -- Ghana's greatest ever player -- scored six goals at the Barcelona Games, including a double against Australia and a hat-trick against Paraguay .
The Black Meteors eventually stumbled against hosts Spain in the semifinals, before defeating Australia in the bronze final.
What happened next : 'The Forgotten Ayew' embarked on a nomadic career, emulating his brother by taking in stops in Qatar, Italy and China, while enjoying his greatest success in Portugal.
He scored more than a goal every other game with Boavista before moving to Sporting CP , with whom he won the Portuguese Primeira Liga in 2000.
Kwame, the uncle of André Ayew and Jordan Ayew , later opened an orphanage in his homeland, and he is now focused on evangelism.
Olympic Star : Among the many intriguing football storylines of the 2012 Olympics in London -- Neymar 's arrival, Team GB -- the passing of the torch in the Egyptian national side may have gone unnoticed.
This was the sole tournament for Mohamed Aboutrika -- the icon of Egypt's three-peat Africa Cup of Nations winners of 2006, 2008 and 2010 -- to play alongside his protégé, Salah.
The younger man made no secret of his adulation for Aboutrika, but he arguably outshone his idol by scoring for Egypt in each of their group matches. The interplay and understanding between the pair was evident as both scored as Egypt attempted to battle back from three goals down in a stirring showing against Brazil in Cardiff.
What happened next : Aboutrika's career ended a year later, when Egypt crashed out of World Cup qualification, while Salah went on to great things.
Salah is yet to emulate Aboutrika's AFCON exploits, but he has established himself as one of Africa's all-time greats and is a two-time African Footballer of the Year.
Olympic Star : Against a backdrop of chaotic preparations, expectations were low for Nigeria ahead of the tournament opener against Japan .
Step forward Oghenekaro Etebo, then 20 and on the books of Portuguese club Feirense , who plundered four goals in a 5-4 barnstormer in Manaus.
With Etebo's thrusting surges forward either from a central or wide role giving a new dimension to the Olympic Eagles' attack, Nigeria advanced to the semifinals, at which point, with the diminutive midfielder absent, Samson Siasa's side were defeated. They ultimately had to content themselves with bronze.
What happened next : Injuries and questionable transfer moves -- Etebo, perhaps, sold himself short by moving to Championship-bound Stoke City in 2018 --cost him momentum, while then Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr repeatedly insisted on miscasting the midfielder as a defensive player in the national set-up.
Etebo has struggled to build on his early success -- a victim, perhaps, of his own versatility -- and he has been without a club since leaving Greek club Aris last year.
Nonetheless, he has still represented Turkish giants Galatasaray , featured briefly in the English Premier League for Watford , and ended the 2018 World Cup as the fifth-most successful dribbler in the tournament.
Kalusha Bwalya ( Zambia , 1988)
Olympic Star : The Zambia side at the Seoul Games are one of Africa's all-time great forgotten teams, with the southern Africans demolishing an Italy team containing Mauro Tassotti, Ciro Ferrara and Angelo Colombo 4-0 in the nation's most famous footballing result at the time.
The Azzurri simply had no answer for Bwalya, then already 25, whose sharp movement and lethal left foot saw him score a hat-trick.
Catenaccio 0 Chipolopolo 4 .
What happened next : Zambia topped their group before they were outmatched by a rampant West Germany in the quarterfinals.
Nonetheless, the largely home-based team -- nicknamed the KK11 after the country's founding president, Dr Kenneth Kaunda -- appeared set for a maiden World Cup qualification in 1994, but that ambition ended in the Zambian air disaster of 1993, when 18 players were killed after their small aircraft crashed in the Atlantic Ocean en route to a qualifier against Senegal .
Bwalya -- nicknamed 'King Kalu' after his exploits in Seoul -- avoided the crash and inspired Zambia to the 1994 AFCON final, but the potential of the 1988 generation was never realised.
Considered Zambia's greatest player, Bwalya has worked in football governance since retirement but he was banned by FIFA in 2018 after an alleged breach of the organisation's Code of Ethics.
Olympic Star : Banda was breathtaking in 2021, scoring six goals during a frantic group stage for Zambia at the COVID-delayed Tokyo Games.
The Copper Queens were dumped out after conceding 15 goals -- their results including a 10-3 hammering by the Netherlands -- but Banda, then 21, took on superstar status as she smashed records with her goalscoring.
She struck back-to-back hat-tricks in Zambia's first two matches -- the first women to achieve the feat -- and equalled the record for most goals scored in a single tournament.
"I just have to be disciplined because I am aiming to become the best footballer in the world," she said at the time.
What happened next : Banda has become one of the most recognisable faces in women's football, and she is one of several Zambians -- alongside Olympic teammates Racheal Kundananji and Grace Chanda -- to have secured lucrative moves to the NWSL .
Nonetheless, her international career has been affected by testosterone testing, prevented her from participating in the 2022 WAFCON.
She did feature in the 2023 World Cup, however, scoring against Costa Rica as the Copper Queens reached the knockouts.
Nwankwo Kanu (Nigeria, 1996)
Olympic Star : There was no shortage of Nigerian legends on parade as the Eagles became the first African football side to win an Olympic football gold medal, in Athens in 1996.
Emmanuel Amuneke, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro and Daniel Amokachi were all key figures in that side, each on their way to -- or in the midst of -- a glittering career.
Perhaps no one's legacy was boosted more than Kanu, however, as he was a new arrival in the squad after the 1994 AFCON triumph and scored the unforgettable "golden goal" against a star-studded Brazil side in the semifinals.
What happened next : An African great, Kanu overcame a serious heart defect to win silverware with Internazionale and Arsenal , having previously been a European champion with Ajax.
Since retirement, he was worked for UNICEF in an ambassadorial capacity, and was recently appointed as one of the faces of Nigeria's bid to host the 2029 Nations Cup.
Olympic Star : In a Senegal Olympic squad containing Sadio Mané , Idrissa Gueye and Cheikhou Kouyaté , it was Konaté who emerged as the Teranga Lions' hero and appeared set to become the nation's next big thing.
Konaté was devastating in Senegal's only Olympic participation to date, denying Team GB an opening victory at Old Trafford with a late equaliser before scoring twice to dispatch Uruguay at Wembley.
His equaliser against United Arab Emirates guaranteed passage to the knockout stage, where he scored his fourth goal in as many games, against Mexico , but was unable to prevent Senegal's elimination.
Konaté departed the UK as Africa's top Olympic goalscorer in 20 years.
What happened next : Currently on the books of Bourges Foot 18 -- the French fourth-tier club owned by former teammate Mane -- it's fair to say that Konaté's career didn't pan out as planned.
He's featured for the likes of Genoa , Sion and SC Amiens -- with decent goal hauls in Switzerland and France -- but has rarely looked like the player who once eclipsed Neymar while starring in front of more than 70,000 supporters.
An AFCON finalist in 2019, Konaté had dropped out of the national side by the time Senegal won their first continental crown in 2022.
Samuel Eto'o (Cameroon, 2000)
Olympic Star : Still a teenager when Cameroon won gold at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Eto'o had won the AFCON earlier that year but was still four years away from starting his storied tenure with Barcelona -- and the glories that awaited.
Having scored in the AFCON final, he again marked a big occasion with a goal -- equalising before the hour mark -- before netting his penalty in the shootout.
What happened next : Eto'o spent the next decade winning trophies aplenty, leaving his mark on major fixtures, and establishing himself as perhaps Africa's all-time greatest player.
He remains the only African player to win the UEFA Champions League on three occasions, and the second player to score in two UCL finals.
Success has been harder to come by as head of Cameroon's football association, in which position acrimonious fallings out and controversial incidents appear to have come at the expense of stability in the local game.
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